The U.S. spent $30B to ditch textbooks | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. spent $30B to ditch textbooks

fortune.com

16 points_tk_9 comments

My college has replaced textbooks with internet resources and "current academic literature," but I'm shocked at the number of people who can't interpret a scientific article, nor properly search a database like PubMed or CABI. It can't be for lack of training: we have entire semester-long courses dedicated to research and library use. Maybe the distractions of text messages and TikTok are to blame like the article suggests.

Be careful they might like your idea. It might not be long before researchers are expected to have a short trendy TikTok like video as their papers synopsis. Those with the most witty and entertaining videos get the most funding.

Feels like the article hand waves away the effect of COVID-19 and the disruption it caused in learning progress, especially for kids that had to start their early years remotely.

Good read if you want to get into it: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5270880/math-reading-co...

Technology does have its effects but this is a very naunced one-sided view, nothing else to expect from the rag that is Fortune.

It is interesting no one mentions budget cuts to k-12 programs from 2008 and onward ... (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/02/many-pub...).

Full headline:

The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents

Yup prev gen was very "cognitively capable". And so they couldnt find anyone beyond Trump for leadership.

The headline contains only a relative statement, not an absolute one. Besides capable does not imply, that you actually use that capability.

"Ultimately, Horvath said, the loss of critical thinking and learning skills is less of a personal failure and more of a policy one, calling the generation of Americans educated with gadgets victims of a failed pedagogical experiment."

And now another ongoing experiment with genAI.

>And now another ongoing experiment with genAI.

It's both an opportunity and a curse. When I was younger I wrote 3d games in raw assembly language, and created my own language and VM. Today you can now do all of that entirely with AI. It's a huge time saver and will result in greater productivity. However, in order to maintain and build strong cognitive skills, you need to engage in challenging problems and learning.

The drive to solve complex problems and build new and fancy things will always be there, and there will always be a subset of people who will leverage the technology to build even bigger and better things than was possible for our generation. So those people will benefit (and possibly get very rich). The technology will likely raise up everyone's productivity and living standards, although those who don't flex their cognitive abilities might find they suffer more chronic health problems later in life.

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