How Big Tech Broke Into the Classroom – Kashmir Observer

Schools became a front line in tech’s attention economy. Joanna Houston knew her son spent time on YouTube at school, but the scale simply surprised her. School records showed that her sixth-grade son in Richmond Hill, Georgia, watched more than 1,500 noneducational YouTube videos on his Chromebook between August and January.  Much of that viewing took place during school hours, turning a device intended for learning into a portal for entertainment. Houston’s discovery shows a growing concern inside American schools. Teachers, parents and administrators increasingly describe classrooms as battlegrounds where lessons compete with notifications, videos and social media feeds designed to capture attention. Newly disclosed internal documents, reviewed by The New York Times through lawsuits filed by more than 1,400 school districts, provide an unusually detailed look at how major technology companies pursued young users during the school day.  The records show social media platforms reaching students in classrooms while educators, parents and company safety teams voiced concerns about academic disruption. Snapchat sent prompts encouraging teenagers to post updates during school hours. Meta recruited high school students to promote Instagram among their peers. TikTok weighed proposals that would limit notifications during class time and ultimately moved in another direction. Google
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