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  "path": "/viewtopic.php?p=449496#p449496",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-13T10:26:13.000Z",
  "site": "https://forum.luanti.org",
  "tags": [
    "Lawmakers Hold Hearing on the Impact of Screen Time on Kids",
    "https://www.commerce.senate.gov/service ... 0CF0C83DC2",
    "rudzik8"
  ],
  "textContent": "The US Senate Commerce committee has recently held a hearing on the impact of increased in-school(!) screen time on the cognitive abilities of students, and one of the witnesses called for a testimony was Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, whom I wish I had found out about sooner. We're all aware of the long standing practice of bringing IT into education (pretty much the same way as into every other aspect of our lives), and for me personally it was refreshing to hear a different take from everything I've heard on the topic.\n\nHere's his opening statement from that hearing:\n\n[\n\nDoctor on How Screen Time Hurts Kids' Cognitive Development – C-SPAN\n](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd-_VDYit3U)\n\nThe full hearing can be accessed on C-SPAN's website, though the transcript is a bit flawed: Lawmakers Hold Hearing on the Impact of Screen Time on Kids\n\nNow, he references a lot of data. In case you wish to fact-check (as you should!), I found the PDF for his written testimony with some graphs and spreadsheets hosted on senate.gov: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/service ... 0CF0C83DC2\nAll the relevant references listed are from 2014-2026, with the remaining 3 out of 18 (2000-2008) being about the general neuroscience of human memory and learning. From my (admittedly limited) research, the data shown there and the data I've encountered on the topic of recently declining child literacy does align.\n\nBefore some of you jump in assuming the opposite:\n\n\n> **This is not a debate about rejecting technology.** It is a question of aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works. Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them.\n\nAnd while the digital learning tools commonly used in classrooms and mostly referenced in the studies do differ from the digital spaces teachers tend to build in Luanti (i.e. digital classrooms and virtual labs akin to ones made with Minecraft Education Edition), it is still as much EduTech as anything else, with heavy gamification, task fragmentation and lots of ways to cheat your way out and feel smarter doing so.\n\nMy takeaway from this, aside from feeling bad for my own generation and those even younger once more, is that **we (including myself) were wrong to promote or even suggest Luanti as a means of educating children and teenagers.** The economic incentive for products like Minecraft in this field is obvious (those taxpayer and private school $$$'s), as it is for LLM services like ChatGPT and Gemini to provide discounted subscriptions for students, but for us (if Dr. Horvath is to be trusted), it's a mistake made due to the overwhelming collective assumption that more technology in education means better education.\n\nI look forward to hearing the opinions of fellow community members on this matter, especially of those involved in education and EduTech.\n\nStatistics: Posted by rudzik8 — Fri Feb 13, 2026 10:26\n\n* * *",
  "title": "General Discussion • Maybe we *shouldn't* advertise Luanti for Education",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-13T10:26:13.000Z"
}