Schools Rethink Classroom Tech as Screen Time Worries Grow

Schools in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Michigan are taking a hard look at how much tech belongs in the classroom. The driving concern: too much student screen time.

The reevaluation targets classroom technology broadly, including Chromebooks. Some schools are already making changes — YouTube and video games on school laptops are getting cut off. Textbooks and pencils are making a comeback.

Here's the interesting part: some seventh graders say they actually prefer learning offline. That's right — the generation raised on iPads is voluntarily choosing paper.

This isn't a blanket ban or a state-level mandate. Individual schools are reassessing their approach, deciding where screens help and where they hurt. The shift signals growing skepticism about the one-laptop-per-student model that dominated K-12 education for the past decade.

The big question now: how far does the reassessment go?