Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
There are quite some studies showing that interactivity actually decreases learning on the long term. Basically, the learner gets distracted by all the shiny buttons, looks for new information instead of incorporating the old one. This gets worse the more options are available at any given time, so the learner constantly has to make a conscious choice to keep their concentration. Comparing it with a book, there are less options and less distractions.
That’s why experiments should have been done. “Too much” is almost always bad, but if the dosage is correct then – snap – and everything is super cool.
It might (I am not a specialist, but absolutely sure in this regard) affect differently on different categories of students. Clever ones would profit from interactivity, more stupid ones should continue to study in a more tedious way with less distractions for unimportant nuances.
There are quite some studies showing that interactivity actually decreases learning on the long term. Basically, the learner gets distracted by all the shiny buttons, looks for new information instead of incorporating the old one. This gets worse the more options are available at any given time, so the learner constantly has to make a conscious choice to keep their concentration. Comparing it with a book, there are less options and less distractions.
That’s why experiments should have been done. “Too much” is almost always bad, but if the dosage is correct then – snap – and everything is super cool.
It might (I am not a specialist, but absolutely sure in this regard) affect differently on different categories of students. Clever ones would profit from interactivity, more stupid ones should continue to study in a more tedious way with less distractions for unimportant nuances.