# Giving Laptops to Students: Does It Cause a Cognitive Decline in Students? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2026, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952 "2026-02-25T07:29:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/21 "2026-02-25T23:40:55Z")
I was one of those weird kids who loved to read/use reference books. Naturally, I became a librarian. I entered the profession just before the Web put information, for better or worse, at everyone’s fingertips. The kids I’ve worked with have generally been less gullible than those who Googled in the aughts, but that may be because I spent time helping them learn to sift through BS and find reliable information. Spending too much time playing games is definitely a problem, but some of those kids would always find things to do besides what was assigned. E-books are getting more and more popular, but not necessarily because they are the preferred format. They make it possible for multiple users to access popular titles at once. In a school setting the SORA app allows students to check out titles system-wide in both the school and public library systems. Does giving students laptops cause cognitive decline? I dunno. Certainly it changes both learning and information seeking behavior. I’m not sure that’s inherently good or bad. I’m retired now, although I am substituting in local schools. I’m no longer observing the same students over long periods of time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/22 "2026-02-26T00:00:02Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Have all American students been given laptops? Pretty close to it, yeah. And if there any students who haven’t been given laptops, they’re likely to be unusual in many other ways, as well. Maybe in extremely poor public school districts? ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/23 "2026-02-26T04:58:46Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I’m also Gen X (58 years old). I remember the days of writing and writing and writing, and I have no fondness or nostalgia for it. I still jot things down on occasion, though. Same age, different experience. I not only love the physical act of writing (I have really nice handwriting), for me it definitely helps me absorb whatever knowledge I’m trying to absorb. At work, we are heavily CRM based and have twice weekly pipeline meetings. The office know-it-all insisted that I bring my laptop and update as we speak. I get it on a practical level, I guess. I can see where it seems more efficient, but for me it was needless overkill. By the time I had to navigate to another tab, go to the correct item, all while our boss is talking a mile a minute, I could have been writing as he was speaking. I finally had to say some variation of “you do you; I now what works best for me”. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/24 "2026-02-26T07:11:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > if there any students who haven’t been given laptops, they’re likely to be unusual in many other ways, as well. Maybe in extremely poor public school districts? And Amish country. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/25 "2026-02-26T07:19:01Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > And Amish country. As I understand it, most Amish children attend dedicated Amish-only schools, rather than whatever public schools in their areas. (And, yeah, I imagine that the number of kids from traditional Amish families who have access to laptops is effectively zero.) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/26 "2026-02-26T15:55:48Z")
This South Park clip illustrates some of my own school-computer memories: the teacher would get distracted by the projector or a login or whatever and lose the class. I’m sure it’s better now than 25 years ago but there must be some drags like that today. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uhSTp5ytCNs/hqdefault.jpg "South Park: Computer room COD:WAW") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhSTp5ytCNs) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/27 "2026-02-26T20:03:18Z")
Today I walked into a fourth-grade classroom during their independent reading block. In a room of ~20 kids, one kid had a paper book in hand. The remaining children were on their Chromebooks. Two of them were writing fiction survival stories, which is an awesome use of the Chromebook. The remaining kids were on [getepic.com](http://getepic.com), a for-profit website with a ton of e-books. Almost all the ones I saw were either the equivalent of Ripley’s Believe it or Not! books from the 60s-70s, or were graphic novels. Both of those genres absolutely have a place, but the lack of regular novels is really concerning to me and is an artifact of the publishing world: websites like [getepic.com](http://getepic.com) aren’t going to pay for top-tier novelists like Rick Riordan and Carlos Hernandez, but instead are going to license less-lovely but cheaper books. I’m by no means a technophobe. I distribute and collect and provide feedback for assignments online, teach kids to use Chromebooks both for research and for creation. But it’s so important to pay attention to how they’re used, and to keep other excellent technologies like bound books in the mix. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/28 "2026-02-26T23:40:06Z")
Epic is ok, but Sora is much better; the books are selected by librarians. I disagree about graphic novels, but that’s for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/29 "2026-02-27T00:32:38Z")
I said that graphic novels absolutely have a place. Is that what you disagree with? ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/30 "2026-02-27T03:15:40Z")
No, it’s that I consider them to be basically equivalent to regular novels. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/31 "2026-02-27T03:47:36Z")
I thought that graphic novels have relatively little text in them? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/32 "2026-02-27T10:59:36Z")
There are different literacy skills involved in reading them, that’s all. I would honestly like to be better at teaching those skills, and I have attended workshops on it to improve my skills; I want kids to read them as well as reading novels without images. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2026, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/33 "2026-02-28T02:19:40Z")
For what it’s worth, my school produces a list of a dozen or so books each year, and expects all members of the school community (students and adults) to pick at least one of them to read over the summer. And we make sure to always have a graphic novel on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2026, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/34 "2026-02-28T03:59:58Z")
I’m thinking I wouldn’t wanna be without laptop skills looking for a job today. Let alone a few years from now. There’s an influencer who sued the school district because her kid gotta a headache from looking at the laptop. Just like his big sisters. Hmm 🤔 sounds like these kids will be working at Mickey D’s for a career. Oh wait, I believe tech knowledge might be required. Lucky them, Mom has a hobby farm and a THC honey company. They’ll always be able to work there. I wonder who’s gonna run the online honey sales? OTOH I would sneak up, as a teen and watch David Letterman if someone I liked was on. I just fell asleep in study hall the next day. Lucky I’m not needed for the great think tank. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2026, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/35 "2026-02-28T07:49:25Z")
And does your school provide no-cost, DRM-free copies of all those books and textbooks that students can load without jumping through hoops or selling their personal details + souls to Microsoft and Amazon? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2026, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/36 "2026-02-28T12:45:04Z")
You mean, a school library? Yeah, we have one of those, like most schools have had for centuries. It’s not enough to supply the entire school community, of course, but there are also public libraries, and most of the school community can buy books without undue personal hardship. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2026, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/37 "2026-02-28T22:15:45Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > I disagree about graphic novels, but that’s for another thread I think this one covered it some? > [@Comics/Graphic Novels that Should Be Taught in High School](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-graphic-novels-that-should-be-taught-in-high-school/1022813): > > There’s another thread about “[Books that should have been read in high school](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-should-have-been-read-in-high-school/1022741/97)” elsewhere in Cafe Society. The thread went a little off the rails when someone suggested MAUS, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that one. (It’s undeniably great comics, maybe the best graphic novel to date. But using it as a resource for a history class about the Holocaust is almost as problematic as using Gone With the Wind for a lesson about the Civil War, its causes and its immediate aftermath. GWTW would be a gre… ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2026, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/38 "2026-03-01T03:19:40Z")
I’m a teacher, and we used to have the kids get their Chromebooks in homeroom before first period and take them with them for the day. So, they had constant access with it on their desks. The times they would be open when not needed the lack of attention and concentration became concerning. So, we decided (lucky that we can do this), that each classroom would have a cart. The kids only get them if they are needed for that specific class. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/39 "2026-03-02T10:40:57Z")
In a word: no. i.e. as a straight answer to the title thread. > **Now for the TL;DR** > > Comparing school systems between countries is filled with problems. AIUI, American kids enter high school in their 9th year. Here in Sweden it’s their 10th. For that they also pick if they are going the vocational or theoretical route. For ease let’s just say I worked in high school, even though the systems really don’t compare. For the sake of laptops and students, I don’t think the differences are much different. > > I changed my life around in '05 and became a teacher. I was 44 and had been working in media since college. In '08 our HS decided we should start with 1-1, i.e. one student, one computer. I was one of four teachers given the task of implementing the change on a peer basis, helping other teachers getting comfortable. With time this morphed to me not actually having classes with students, but full time working with the staff. From the start we used Google (more on that later) and the only sensible option was to buy Macbooks (those in white plastic). It actually turned out to be cheaper to buy 650 Macbooks than having the old system with stationary PCs, due to two IT-guys getting jobs at other schools and power bills going way down. It turns out having 300+ PCs running 24/7 uses up a lot of electricity1 > > So I worked with this stuff for a little more than twelve years2. I became Google Apps For Education, GAFE, admin and will share some random reflections on what I learned during these years. > > * * * > > For as evil as Google is, they were a boon in the class room. I’m not sure what actual term U.S. teachers would use, but real-time update/synchronous shared documents is a tool that can fundamentally change teaching and learning and really make it worthwhile investing in laptops for students. > > > [@Reply](#): > > > > Something as innocuous as a Google Doc can be easily turned into a class chatroom for gossip, without the teacher knowing. > > But that’s the whole point. Students learn by collaborating. And passing notes in class is as old as education. You might say having laptops makes this easier, but I find that teachers love students who look attentive and have a pen/pencil in their hands. There’s no way to know where their minds are actually wandering. It’s easy to slam down on social media, phones and laptops. > > With a shared document, a student working on an essay can raise their hand and say “Charlie, can you check my text!?” I go in, make comments and ask questions. Looking at version history makes it easy to see if there’s been any CMD+C and CMD+V. Many times, when they’re done, I wouldn’t even need to read the final products, since I had seen the process and knew what the student knew and where there was need for improvement. Giving feedback was a breeze. Grading at the end of the semester was as easy. > > But the main problem I struggled with during this years is that most teachers3 let the students use the laptop as a digital typewriter. It’s easier to read, than a smudge piece of paper, but quite often teaches would print what students sent in and grade on paper before giving it back. > > So the problem with laptops in classrooms isn’t how the students use them, it’s the teachers not knowing how to use them. And if the teacher’s don’t, it will be a net loss to give every student a laptop. > > Some more disjointed stuff. > > GAFE is very good and free. They keep improving it. My main beef is that the idiots at Google Sweden are engineers who don’t know how to transfer American concepts to their Swedish Equivalents. Machine translation is not good. > > Education should be about learning how to think, IMO. Any method that achieves that is a good. > > It actually always starts with a pen/pencil and paper. There are a lot of tools for education, e.g. apps that do mind maps. I’ve yet to find one that beats pen and paper. Sticking stuff in a laptop just because those in charge think it will improve learning, without reflecting on what the actual benefits are, is counter productive. Around '10, all the rage was “smart boards” and schools around the world invested millions. A fair bet is that most of them are not being used, if they even function, today. An ordinary whiteboard and a marker is much easier. > > Every student having a Chromebook (which is mostly the standard globally I think) is a very good compensatory thing. Not only for kids where the parents can’t afford giving each kid a laptop. But it’s also great for that introverted student that doesn’t speak up so much in class. It improves the way a teacher can interact with each individual and help them with their specific needs. > > 1 If you think the students in the last class of the day turned of their computers before leaving or the teachers make sure they did will happen, you’ve not taught HS. > 2 Cut short by cancer, severance package and then retirement. > 3 even those millennials that are erroneously called “digital natives” - a horrible concept that was never true. And finally: Is there any reliable data that show that students today have “cognitive decline?” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952/40 "2026-03-02T23:55:52Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Around '10, all the rage was “smart boards” and schools around the world invested millions. A fair bet is that most of them are not being used, if they even function, today. An ordinary whiteboard and a marker is much easier. Around '10, an ordinary whiteboard and a marker was much easier. Smartboards have gotten much better since then, though. The only sense in which “most smartboards are not being used” is that the old ones are getting replaced by newer ones that work better, and the obsolete replaced ones are now going unused. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-laptops-to-students-does-it-cause-a-cognitive-decline-in-students/1027952.md?page=3)