We are deeply grateful to Miriam Krupka and Christine Rosen for their thoughtful responses. One a teacher on the frontlines of the ed-tech debate, the other a philosopher of technology, both Krupka and Rosen offer crucial perspectives that complement our own.

Rosen rightly observes that the pathologies of ed tech represent broader trends in society, particularly the loss of self-evidently healthy norms: writing with a pen, preferably in cursive; approaching a woman in person instead of “swiping” on a dating app; chatting about politics with acquaintances at a café instead of berating strangers on social media; making eye contact; working in a physical office. Business meetings happen over Zoom and conversations via text messages. In short, technology has largely replaced older forms of socialization. Rosen’s recent book, The Extinction of Experience, chronicles the disappearance of these conventions—some trivial, others foundational to the human experience.

The youngest among us have the least familiarity with the pre-digital ways of doing things. (Think of how those under a certain age find it rude to call someone without texting first, whereas members of older generations will simply pick up a phone and dial.) Thus the battle to interrupt the slide into digital socialization must focus in particular on children. A world in which children’s attention span is decimated by the age of fifteen is a world in which we have no choice but to embrace more mediation through computers and phones, more “gamification” of learning, and more screens. Ed tech is the product of that world, a world in which virtually every encounter or activity is measured, recorded, shared, and optimized. Younger generations may grow up thinking these forms of study and interpersonal engagement are not aberrations but norms. Without a conscious, determined effort, the transformation could be irreversible. Ours is a pivotal moment because it might offer the last chance for us—as individuals and as communities—to chart another path.

Rosen notes that course correction requires a change in philosophy as well as in policy. While our essay focuses on the recent history of American education, the root of the impulse to reduce every activity—educative or not—into something to be quantified or optimized runs much deeper than John Dewey, Khan Academy, or the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. When we deplore the tendency of ed tech to promote the convenient over the demanding, the predictable over the spontaneous, the quantitative over the qualitative, or the impersonal over the personal, our target is not merely a set of technologies but a widespread attitude toward the world.

We argue that the ed tech movement began with a dream of self-sufficient children in charge of their own education, an extension of the view that children are mini-adults oppressed by the rules around them. But this view, ultimately, arises from a much larger fight for unrestrained autonomy in all areas of life. The equation of freedom with autonomy and unfettered agency afflicts adults as well. At all ages, we gravitate towards the digital world because it relieves us of the “burdens” of “real life.” Dating apps offer quicker and easier ways to “meet people” than showing up in person at, say, a synagogue or church social event. A social-media “life update” that reaches hundreds of people is a more convenient way to keep in touch than a phone call to an old friend, which might be awkward or take longer than expected.

To be online is to access a realm of boundless possibilities over which we seem to have full control; it’s no coincidence that the Greek root of cyber means to govern. As ed tech reveals, however, this sense of control is too often an illusion; the users of ed tech are influenced or manipulated in subtle, sometime corrosive, ways. Technology tends to rule us more than we rule it. This is not to say that the Internet is an unmitigated force for evil, or even that it has done more harm than good. But for us to harness the benefits of the Internet without embracing the “extinction of experience” we will have to teach ourselves—and our children—to cherish the unquantifiable, frustratingly inefficient parts of life.

The subtle, often imperceptible way in which technology “liberates” us from the “burdens of experience” has frustrated our ability to evaluate our relationship to it. Each decision along the way, whether to integrate a product into the classroom or to set a goal as a school district, makes sense in isolation. Each decision seems to make teaching more efficient or transparent or accessible. But the sum of these decisions, as screens encroach upon more and more facets of education, has fostered an altogether different classroom experience, disenfranchising teachers and harming students in the process.

As a teacher who must confront these issues head-on, Krupka points to the COVID pandemic as a unique moment in which the effects of ed tech and “remote learning” were faced “clearly and unequivocally.” The pandemic accelerated the digitalization of the classroom, thereby revealing the harms of trends decades underway. While the ed-tech movement has moved subtly, over years, to intrude into the day-to-day lives of students, the pandemic made these transformations impossible to ignore. Suddenly, the digital classroom supplanted the physical classroom all at once. While devastating for students, Krupka describes COVID as a time of clarity, which imparted key “lessons” upon her and her students about the challenges that technology poses to education. Parents could see the damage to their kids; teachers struggled to do their jobs; and students fell behind. But all came to realize the limits of the digital classroom. COVID made it necessary for all of us to contend with the costs of the “extinction of experience.”

Krupka writes from a high school that has maintained an unusually healthy relationship with technology. Drawing on her experience, she offers excellent ideas about how administrators, principals, and teachers can evaluate their relationship with ed tech more critically. Krupka also proposes a “golden rule of ed tech”: classroom technology should support learning based on human interaction, never replace it. This golden rule might sound simple, but it captures the attitude that teachers, administrators, and the rest of us ought to cultivate as we decide the future of education. Neither obdurate luddites nor uncritical promoters of ed tech, the savviest educators will integrate new tools into the classroom without compromising the cultivation of crucial skills and relationships.

Fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence, a new suite of ed-tech products is under development at this very moment. These products, no doubt, will prove impressive. A new alliance of technologists, policymakers, and non-profits will (re-)emerge to sing their praises and encourage immediate integration. At that point, will be necessary to defend Krupka’s golden rule vigorously and at all costs. Looking back to the hard-earned lessons of the last decade—especially of the pandemic—teachers, administrators, and parents will need to come together and protect the classroom from the ever-expanding grip of screens. Schools like Krupka’s will need to show the way for others to follow.