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Comment on New York City Bans AI from Elementary Schoolsparent

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It is absolutely not Luddite to note that pretty much no technological revolution privileged elementary-school aged kids who had exposure over those who did not. That divergence starts manifesting in the teenage years, after basic cognitive functions like information absorption and processing and self-motivated curiosity have set in.

When? Which decade between 1970 and today?

Show me the study or tell me the keywords to look up, because I cannot reveal what you are hinting at.

When? Which decade between 1970 and today? Show me the study

The best data illustrating the point are for home internet access on educational outcomes.

In early development, we see a negative effect [1]. Young kids with more home internet do worse than those with less of it. In middle and high school, that effect reverses [2]. (There are better studies on this in the EU.)

Bill Gates absolutely benefited from having a terminal at his high school when others didn’t. There are lots of similar examples across America and history. I know of no similar anecdotes for any technology when it comes to young kids since we banned child labor. (If you start laboring at 8, yes, getting familiar with and locked into the tools of your trade at 5 will advantage you.)

The burden of proof in early education should not be on parents and policymakers to prove harm. It should be on proponents of novel tools and methods to prove benefits.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...

[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3614074

based on the dates, links, publishing status, and content, these seem somewhat contrived, but i will read them, when i have the chance.

that first paper is on academic outcomes in uraguay, with a particular set of testing that i am not familiar with. if you could fill me in, that would be great.

i am also not following how they arrived at this:

'We find no statistically significant effect of FTTH exposure on children spending more than one hour per day in front of a screen – the threshold recommended by health institutions – nor on caregivers' acceptance of using screens to entertain children without supervision. We interpret this as insufficient evidence to confirm the direct channel with our data, rather than as evidence that it is not operating: our measures of screen time have significant limitations, and we cannot rule out that direct exposure is also playing a role.'

but i can't see the whole paper from where i am at the moment.

the other paper looks more like a magazine article, but i will try to take a look at it.

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