Laptops alone can’t bridge the digital divide

What is missing in the focus on getting laptops in the hands of children is the social component of learning—a component all too often taken for granted or even disparaged. As a culture, the United States has long loved the heroic idea of children teaching themselves. Movies and stories constantly retell this narrative of scrappy young people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. These myths are especially common regarding technical knowledge. Even though higher education is the overwhelming norm among computer programmers, and most successful entrepreneurs are middle-aged, the narrative that circulates in coding boot camps, in Thiel Fellowships for college dropouts, and across the technology industry more generally is that college and even high school are unnecessary for, and might even hamper, technological entrepreneurialism. These myths also feed the “do your own research” narrative of vaccine skepticism, obscuring the significant institutional infrastructure, professionalization practices, and peer review that make scientific findings robust. And it fuels the idea that children can teach themselves anything if only they are given the right tools. 

These individualistic narratives invariably smooth over the social support that has always been an important, though unacknowledged, component of learning. Ideally, this includes a stable home environment without housing or food insecurity; a safe community with good infrastructure; and caring, skilled, well-­resourced teachers. When covid-19 shuttered schools around the world throughout 2020 and, in many areas, into 2021, the work that schools and teachers did for students suddenly fell to parents and caretakers, and it became apparent that having a working laptop and internet was only one step toward learning. The youngest students in particular needed full-time supervision and support to have any hope of participating in remote classes. Parents, who were often also juggling their own jobs, struggled to provide this support. The results were stark. Millions of parents (especially mothers) dropped out of the workforce for lack of child care. Low-income children, without the benefits of private schools, tutors, and “learning pods,” quickly fell months behind their privileged peers. Rates of child depression and suicide attempts soared. The stress of the pandemic, and the existing social inequities it accentuated, clearly took a toll on students—laptops or no. To understand the importance of social support, we can also look at what students do with their laptops in their free time.