Sweden went all-in on tablets in schools. Then their kids stopped being able to read.

Let that satisfying irony sink in for a second.

One of the most tech-forward nations on Earth handed every student a screen, replaced textbooks with apps, and introduced tablets in preschool. The goal was noble — prepare kids for a digital future.

The results were not.

Reading comprehension dropped. Attention spans cratered. Teachers watched students struggle with basic writing. Sweden’s fourth-grade reading scores fell 11 points on international assessments between 2016 and 2021.

So Sweden did something almost no country has the guts to do. They admitted they were wrong.

Education Minister Lotta Edholm called the mass digitization of schools “a mistake.” The government invested €104 million to put physical textbooks back in every classroom. Teachers brought back handwritten notes, quiet reading time, and actual encyclopedias.

Sweden’s Karolinska Institute — the same institution that awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine — put it bluntly: there is clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning.

Read that again.

Tablets aren’t banned. This isn’t anti-technology. It’s pro-balance. Screens still have a role — but they’re no longer running the show.

Here’s what makes this matter for the rest of us: Norway and Denmark are studying the same questions. South Korea introduced screen-time limits for students. UNESCO issued an urgent global call for appropriate use of tech in education. A 9-year-old student in Stockholm summed it up better than any policymaker could: “I like writing more in school, like on paper, because it just feels better.”

Kids understand something we keep overcomplicating.

The research is clear. Kids understand and retain information better when they read it on paper. Handwriting builds neural pathways that typing doesn’t. Physical books create focus that glowing screens destroy.

Sweden had the courage to course-correct. Maybe the rest of us should pay attention.

Source: The Think Academy | AP News | Swedish Government

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