By Mark Bauerlein, Chronicles, February 2026
Mark Bauerlein is senior editor at First Things and emeritus professor of English at Emory University.
In 2008, after I’d written a book with the subtitle “How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future,” I was labeled a “Luddite” more than 50 times in various lectures, panels, and radio interviews. I argued that social media, multitasking, and computers in the classroom were threats to knowledge, taste, and bookish habits, and so came off as a clueless Boomer. The same thing happened when other tech skeptics of that era spoke out against the spreading digital zeal in those heady days of Web 2.0.
Back then, all the momentum was with the digital breakthrough, particularly in K-12 education. In 2000, the state of Maine initiated a program to give every middle schooler a laptop, and soon a half-dozen states launched similar plans. One element of No Child Left Behind, “Enhancing Education through Technology,” gave schools nationwide funding to integrate tech into the curriculum and make kids “technologically literate” by eighth grade. …
