In the sunny south-facing classroom in the red brick building on the University of Washington campus this spring, I posed this question to the college students in my seminar on Public Policy: EdTech, Social Media, and Data Privacy:

What skills or characteristics do children need to flourish?

In other words, when we’re thinking about how to help children grow into thriving, healthy, and successful adults, what do we need to teach them in childhood?

I asked my students to popcorn out the answers and I jotted them down on my always-open notepad on the table in front of me. Here is what they said:

Collaboration
Perception
Reading
Listening
Writing
Communication
Self-motivation
Self-advocacy
Social skills
Critical thinking
Agency
Problem-solving
Creativity
Grit
Independence
Perseverance

Thinking about the healthy and well-rounded adults I know, my students did a fantastic job highlighting the qualities critical to flourishing in adulthood.

Do you notice what they didn’t mention, however? No one said, “Generative AI.” Not a single student said, “iPads.” No mention of “learning apps or tools.” In fact, as I will argue, modern day technological tools erode our ability to learn these skills.

No one even uttered the word “technology.”

When I pointed this out, their eyes grew wide. Yet here they were, college students in 2025– some even majoring in technological fields– turning in all their essays to an online portal, reading all their assigned readings on a screen, taking all their notes by typing on a laptop,all while resisting the urge to use ChatGPT or get easily distracted by their internet-connected devices.

Beyond the lack of a mention of technological skills, the list that my current students came up with (critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, communication) is also exactly the same skills that we needed as children to flourish, which were the same skills our parents and grandparents needed.

In other words, the elements of what it means to thrive as an adult has not changed in hundreds of years. Revolutions both technological and industrial have come and gone, yet it was our ancestors’ ability to persevere or work with others that carried them through, not the latest invention. It was how they used the tool in the context of relationships to other humans that determined who thrived (or didn’t).

One of the beautiful things about teaching is that you never quite know where a class discussion will take you. A few moments after this epiphany, a student raised his hand. “I wonder,” he said, “if we might reframe this question to consider policy implications: ‘What qualities or skills does a democracy need to flourish?’”

An excellent question.

Today, in this perilous and spinning world we live in, such skills and our humanness matter more than ever. Democracies depend on a knowledgeable and caring populace– one that protects the thoughts and rights of everyone, even those with whom we disagree. Democracies put extraordinary power in the hands of everyday people, and such responsibility requires these people– us– to be informed, to have sound judgement, and to care for the general welfare of all members of a society. 

Being informed, discerning, and caring, of course, requires us to master skills like communication, critical thinking, and creativity– these very same skills my students listed. Without such skills, especially in this highly digitized world with social media and Generative AI, our ability to think critically about what we see, to discern mis- and dis-information, and to understand the echo chambers of unique platforms becomes more vital than ever. Not doing so threatens our very fragile social structure. 

Without these skills, voters fall prey to voting against their own best interests and become isolated from those with whom they disagree. Unanimity isn’t the goal, of course, nor is it even possible, but the siloing of ideas and the echo chamber of social media certainly threatens democracy itself. As Thomas Jefferson said, “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

In spite of the marketing hype, EdTech products and AI “tools” for education contribute to the decimation of not only public education, but to skill development itself. Even further, as I’ve written about many times, the questions to ask include whether or not a product or tool is effective (rarely is it superior to a human teacher), but also whether or not the products and tools are safe (no, as children can access porn, misinformation, violence, and social media on their school devices, as well as they are by design, extremely distracting) and legal (no, as the platforms that children use in schools violate their privacy, mine their data, and sell it to third parties for profit).  

The business model of the technology industry (including EdTech) is fundamentally at odds with child development and the building of these critical skills, which can only be learned through friction and struggle and in the context of relationships. And the erosion of these skills in a future citizenry is a threat to democratic institutions. 

Unfortunately, a tsunami of technology products continues to flood classrooms in K-12 and higher education around the world. While there are some concerned voices speaking up, I’ve been surprised to hear more positive feelings than concerns from higher education leaders, even when it comes to untested and highly risky products like Generative AI. 

My theory about this is that today’s higher education teachers are only seeing the tip of a wave and they have no idea what’s coming. Over the next five or ten years, a new group of young people, whose childhoods were shaped by iPads more than outdoor play, will arrive in classrooms. (One quip I saw by a teacher on social media said “I can’t tell which babies were breastfed or bottlefed, but I can tell which kids had iPads in early childhood and which ones didn’t.”) 

Today’s college students are not tomorrow’s college students.

Do the math: the iPad came out in 2010, fifteen years ago. But if you watch the original launch video for the iPad, Steve Jobs says nothing about children using it.

Today’s college students, if we assume they are around 20 years old, would have been born around 2005, two years before the first iPhone came out. So yes, while today’s college students were born into a world where internet-connected devices existed, they were not used ubiquitously. In fact, in 2008, 77% of Americans owned cell phones, not smartphones, and in 2011, only 35% had smartphones. Today, of course, nearly every adult has one, but we forget that just over a decade ago, smartphone owners were not in the majority. 

And as Dr. Doug Gentile’s research shows, it wasn’t until the 2010s that we saw a big uptick in time spent engaging with digital media– streaming television, social media, and video gaming– and the ensuing displacement of other (non-digital) experiences that used to be typical in childhood (outside play, reading books, extra curricular activities, time with family and friends).

Furthermore, technology use in education has dramatically shifted in the past five years. Yes, computer labs existed in my 90s middle school years, but the notion of 1:1 internet-connected devices given to children as young as five years old in school and for school is a very recent phenomenon. People are often shocked by this photo I show of kindergarten students on a school playground, hunched over their district-issued iPads instead of playing on the playground, yet this is commonplace today:

The irony of all this of course is that the technology industry, while touting the supposed benefits of their products for children out of one corner of their mouths, behaves in the exact opposite manner elsewhere, operating corporate offices filled with white boards, collaborative meeting spaces, paper and pencils, and rules about personal smartphone use. Bill Gates and his brethren-in-tech famously had play-based, nature-filled, high-quality educational experiences that informed their expertise, and later vast wealth and fame, in the technology industry, and they also limit their own children’s exposure to the very digital technologies they build and market to the rest of us. 

Children do not need screen-based technology to thrive. Children may want it. Children may find it entertaining. Children may even prefer it to other humans.

But this is because learning is difficult. Learning requires friction. Learning happens in moments of struggle. Learning involves risk.

And that’s not even enough. On the wall above my desk I have a post-it note: “Learning happens in the context of relationships.” True learning– the acquisition of knowledge and the making of meaning– needs to happen in concert with others. Humans are social creatures. We need one another, not just for survival, but to flourish, too.

Democracies are no different. To thrive and flourish, to “survive as a free people,” as Jefferson said, we need to be able to relate with one another, to problem-solve, to think critically, and to connect and empathize. 

Not all change is progress. To protect childhood and democracy, we must resist the incursion of technology products in schools and defend the development of skills vital to a thriving society.