America’s math and reading scores tanked after schools ditched textbooks for screens—and AI could worsen the brain rot

At the turn of the century, educational technology initiatives put laptop keyboards at the fingertips of U.S. schoolchildren. Now, 25 years later, the next generation of students have turned to AI—and education experts warn unrestricted use of the technology could atrophy critical thinking skills.

AI use among students has become ubiquitous following the 2022 release of ChatGPT. More than half of teenagers are using the technology for schoolwork, a Pew Research Center report released last month found. Of the nearly 1,500 parents and teens interviewed for the survey, 57% of teen students use AI to search information, and 54% use it for schoolwork.

While access to AI chatbots makes homework as easy as plugging a question into one’s phone, the frictionless retrieval of information using AI has raised concerns among educators: Rather than aid in learning, could AI actually hinder the process?

A Brookings Institute study published in January laid bare anxieties around the potential harms of AI in the classroom. Analyzing data from interviews and focus groups with more than 500 educators, parents, and students across 50 countries, as well as from more than 400 studies, the researchers found at this point, “risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits.”

The report gave credence to early research—including a February 2025 Microsoft study—finding AI use was associated with worse judgement and critical thinking skills.

“The cognitive offloading, and the cognitive decline that’s associated with that, the decline in critical thinking, and just even reading and writing and knowledge of basic facts—I absolutely believe that,” to be the case, Mary Burns, an education consultant and co-author of the Brookings Institute study, told Fortune.

EdTech under scrutiny

Computer use in schools has come under recent scrutiny following a Congressional testimony in January from neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, who noted, citing Program for International Student Assessment data, that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to be less cognitively capable than their parents. He blamed unfettered access to classroom technology, noting a stark correlation in lower standardized testing scores and more screen time in school. A 2014 study surveying 3,000 university students found that two-thirds of the time students spend on their screens were on off-task activities.

“This is not a debate about rejecting technology,” Horvath said in his written testimony. “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.”

Horvath, author of the 2025 book The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning—and How to Help Them Thrive Again, told Fortune the rise of EdTech was a result of tech companies creating a narrative around the need for screens in the classroom to bolster learning. The push for computers in schools began in 2002, when Maine became the first state to introduce a statewide program providing laptops to schoolchildren in the classroom. Following a slow rollout, Google began reaching out to educators to test its low-cost Chromebook with free Google apps, and asked teachers and administrators to promote the product. In partnership with schools, Google’s Chromebook became commonplace in classrooms, accounting for more than half of digital devices sent to schools in 2017.

There have been more than 100 years of evidence showing the failures of automated learning, Horvath argued, beginning with the 1924 invention of the “teaching machine” by Ohio State University psychology professor Sidney Pressey. Students learned to answer the questions the machine would generate when fed a piece of paper, but were unable to generalize that knowledge outside the device.

“Kids would be very good so long as they were using the tool, but as soon as they went off the tool, they couldn’t do it anymore,” Horvath said.

Burns, the education consultant, said AI was, in some ways, a natural extension of the argument tech companies have made about the need for computers in school, which is that students are able to learn at their own pace, or seek out information of interest to them to initiate their own learning.

“[Tech] companies keep talking about, AI is personalizing learning,” she said. “I don’t think it’s personalizing learning. I think it’s individualizing learning. There’s a difference there, and that’s kind of a classic carryover from educational technology.”

Integrating AI into classrooms

According to Horvath, student AI use is not conducive to learning because it mirrors the failures of the 20th century “teaching machines.” Students’ learning was individualized—they answered questions from the device at their own pace and independently from other students—but were unable to synthesize knowledge taught outside the device. Similarly, Horvath said, giving AI to students without clear instructions or parameters teaches students how to rely on the device, not their own critical thinking.

“The tools experts use to make their lives easier are not the tools children should use to learn how to become experts,” Horvath said. “When you use offloading tools that experts use to make their lives easier as a novice, as a student, you don’t learn the skill. You simply learn dependency.”

Burns—a proponent of EdTech—said it’s futile to eschew the technology altogether. The Brookings Institute study found that despite educators having real fear that students will use AI to cheat, teachers are using AI to create lesson plans. Data on AI in the classroom is limited, but there are benefits, she added. For English language learners, for example, teachers can use AI to alter the lexile level of a reading passage.

“To say that technologies are a failure is not true,” Burns said. “To say technology is a mixed bag is true.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com