Study: Mixing School-age Kids And Computers Makes For Bad Stuff

I’ve always believed that computers, in a general sense, are not a panacea for developing nations. By slapping a laptop down on the desk of every student in Africa or Brazil you’re doing little more than forcing that kid to learn to type and then offering him or her the opportunity to look at porn. Without proper supervision and education, the Internet and, to some extent, computing itself is a timesink and an educational black hole.

Well now we have a modicum of proof.

Some folks at Columbia University did a study in 2009 on a Romanian project designed to offer vouchers to families for computers. This kids who didn’t get a computer complained that they wanted a computer but little else changed. But the kids who got a computer:

In a draft of an article that the Quarterly Journal of Economics will publish early next year, the professors report finding “strong evidence that children in households who won a voucher received significantly lower school grades in math, English and Romanian.” The principal positive effect on the students was improved computer skills.

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