Alice Rhee, a remote tech employee based in Fairbanks, Alaska, and her husband, a long-term public school teacher, agreed on this rule: They would not allow their son screen-based activities at home until he was older and his brain more developed. They felt confident in their decision.
Rhee understood the habit-forming nature of many digital games. Through his work, her husband had observed what he described as a seemingly unquestioned embrace of the ed-tech industry by district and school administrators.
In the classroom, he witnessed what he believed were negative effects heavy video game use had on students’ reading, writing, critical thinking, and attention spans. The couple did not anticipate that school would become the biggest challenge to keeping their 5-year-old son’s environment tech-free.
Rhee got the first hint while reviewing her son’s kindergarten supply list. Along with markers, crayons, and other typical items, families were asked to send students to school with headphones.
Then, just weeks into kindergarten, Rhee noticed her son began seeking out move video game-like experiences at home—toys with lights, sounds, or other interactive features. She later realized he had been using games on his school-issued iPad.
“He talked obsessively about the coins he’d collected and how he deliberately refused to progress so that he could max out his coins and play as many games as possible per level,” Rhee said. “I felt like his brain was being hijacked.”
Fairbanks North Star Borough school district, where Rhee’s son is a student, isn’t an outlier in its use of digital devices in early grades. Districts across the nation began providing devices to all students, even kindergartners, during the pandemic, when remote learning was a necessity. Many continued the practice when schools reopened. Currently, 78% of districts either supply K-2 students with individual devices or permit them to bring their own to school, according to a 2026 report from the Consortium for School Networking, a professional association for K-12 ed-tech professionals.
Fairbanks North Star Borough school district officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Over the past year, there’s been rising backlash to tech use in schools—especially regarding use at the early elementary level. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the nation, for instance, is eliminating digital devices for early education through 1st grade, starting in the fall of 2026. Organized parent and teacher groups often drive these efforts, though change can be slow.
In May, Rhee testified at her local school board meeting against the use of computing devices in the early grades. So far, she said, there’s been no change in policy.
In the meantime, many kindergartners around the country continue to receive routine exposure to electronic devices in school. Reasons vary—from conducting digital assessments to filling downtime between instructional periods.
I felt like his brain was being hijacked.
Devices as classroom management tools?
With a few weeks to spare before starting a new job, Rhee volunteered at her son’s school to observe how students in kindergarten classrooms were using iPads.
She noticed that students were often allowed to use the devices after recess or lunch, when energy levels were high, and transitions could be challenging. During these periods, students were typically directed to practice i-Ready, a digital platform for reading and math, before moving on to other academic games on their devices.
Rhee isn’t the only person to suggest that devices in kindergarten sometimes serve as classroom management tools of sorts.
In a 2024 study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 14 teachers from six schools in a large urban district gave their input on the use of learning devices in their classrooms. “The tablets freed [teachers] up to work with other children in small groups or to administer assessments, due to the independent nature of tablet use,” the researchers concluded.
Lisa Reas, a Parkland, Fla., mother of three, made a similar observation. “We know that students are engaged [using a device] while the teacher is doing something with small groups. But engaged versus actual learning is very different,” said Reas, a former 4th grade teacher who also previously worked as a technology trainer for teachers.
Reas believes teachers in her local school district may turn to devices as a way to “manage” large class sizes or fill gaps when outdoor recess isn’t possible, such as during extreme heat, a fairly common occurrence in Florida.
“When the kids can’t go outside, and we don’t have gymnasiums at the elementary level, their option is to go on computers, because it’s a way for the teachers to have their 15 minutes to plan the next lesson,” said Reas.
Even with restrictions, students find workarounds
Most concerning about elementary students’ computer use during downtime, like recess, says Reas, is students’ ability to access YouTube—even on devices designed to block them.
Teachers surveyed in the Early Childhood Research Quarterly study reported similar frustrations, noting that some children quickly learned how to bypass restrictions.
Tiffany Munzer, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2026 policy statement on digital media and children, says some parents of her young patients tell her that their children are finding their way to YouTube on school-issued devices.
Munzer’s patient population, especially children with ADHD and autism, tends to exhibit traits that make them more “exploratory” than other students, she said. Consequently, they’re more likely to stray from the intended classroom use of a device and access extraneous online content at school, like YouTube.
“For those kids, there might not be enough guardrails on a 1-to-1 laptop to contain their curiosity, and so there’s this mismatch between how the technology is designed and how their brains operate and work best,” said Munzer.
One of the kindergarten teachers surveyed in the 2024 study said students “all learned how to get onto YouTube.” Some of the teachers credited their students’ tech savvy with prior computer use at home.
Devices don’t offer the human connection critical to early learning
Even when young learners are not straying from ed-tech programs designed for academics, they may be missing a component critical to the learning experience, Munzer explains.
“When device use is excessive, it can crowd out [classroom] opportunities for human connection,” Munzer said. A computer can’t scaffold a student’s individual learning process the way a teacher who knows a student well can, she explained.
“When the teacher knows that student and what makes them tick and what they love, they can really create analogies or tie material back to their real life or real-world learning in a way that is going to emphasize and help strengthen those kinds of neural connections and ties,” she said.
Where technology can play a role in early education classrooms
Even some critics of excessive tech use in early education believe that technology can have a place in the classroom.
Reas points to targeted uses, such as timed math practice with immediate feedback or introducing basic computer literacy skills like using a mouse or keyboard.
Virtual field trips, in which a teacher shares with students places they might otherwise never get to experience in their real lives, can be both inspiring and informative too, Reas added. Google Earth, for instance, allows students to experience what it’s like to travel around the world.
Districts should articulate to parents their vision for how technology should be used
The biggest problem with ed tech in early education isn’t necessarily its presence in the classroom, say media and education experts. It’s how it’s used. Of particular concern to critics about devices is the lack of deliberate planning around their use in school.
“Schools need to make sure they have a clearly articulated approach and philosophy to how they’re using technology in the classroom,” said Eisha Buch, head of teaching and learning for Common Sense Media.
Sharing upfront with families the school’s vision of the role of technology in teaching and learning can help quell parents’ anxieties around its use, Buch notes. Not doing so may promote an adversarial, “us against them” relationship when, in reality, schools and parents generally do share the same goals, she said.
“We want kids to be safe, we want them to be happy and healthy, and when it comes to school and learning, we want them to really be critical thinkers, and we want them to be curious learners, and we want them to have a love of learning,” said Buch.
To that end, schools should be asking themselves whether technology in the classroom is helping to achieve these goals, Buch suggests.
Munzer, the developmental behavioral pediatrician, agrees. “My underlying question,” she said, “Is, what is the purpose technology would be serving for kids in the classroom?”
