Does digital technology make students stupid?

Conventional wisdom believes "screen time" disrupts mental development, but research hints at a more complicated relationship between our minds and digital technology.

Photo: Pixabay
  • Worry over test scores has led many to blame digital technology for waning educational achievement.
  • New studies show that the persistent effects of "screen time" are not yet understood and may be short-lived.
  • Many experts argue the best approach is to teach students the strategic and selective use of digital technology.
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Parents who lie to their kids raise adult liars

A new study finds that casually fibbing to children results in lifelong issues.

Image source: PR Image Factory/Shutterstock
  • For simplicity and speed, parents may employ untruths as conversation-enders and to coerce desirable behavior using empty threats.
  • Telling kids not to lie while modeling contrary behavior is, not surprisingly, a problem.
  • Lying as an adult is just one of the issues lied-to children exhibit as grownups.
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Hormone Hacking: How to engineer your quality of life

Has misinformation clouded our understanding of the anti-aging power of hormones?

  • Hormone therapy and supplementation have often been associated with cancer and unwanted side effects.
  • However, this connection is fueled by misinformation and faulty sources of testosterone and estrogen outside the human body.
  • When taken correctly, bioidentical hormone supplements can dial back the aging process and spark a zest for life while decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease in both men and women.
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Ending the “endless growth” fairytale needs moral clarity

If economic growth knowingly increases mass-scale suffering, can we stop chasing it?

Illustration by Julia Suits, author of The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions, and The New Yorker cartoonist.
  • Greta Thunberg got it right, the "endless economic growth fairytale" covers up clearly wicked consequences.
  • We're no longer in the same moral world where many of our smart abstract ideas (like "growth") were conceived. We face new material and moral constraints, and their logic requires "degrowth."
  • We have all the tech we need to cope with the climate crisis right now. It's not a technology, it's a technique.
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Are you mentally well enough for college?

While pressure to succeed is on the rise, students' mental health and readiness for college has diminshed.

Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images

Last spring an 18-year-old college freshman who got straight A's in high school – but was now failing several courses – came to my office on the campus where I work as a psychologist.

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