Jean Twenge’s brilliant essay Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?is a must read for anyone working in education, youth care or dealing with medialiteracy (#mediawijsheid).

I reminds me of the PEW survey in 2012 (!) about Youth in 2020 to which I contributed. In that survey, I (plus a lot of other global experts) predicted exactly what is happening now and what Jean Twenge factchecked: our growing unability to focus and to read human signals – due to screen time, due to what I call the Dumbphone.

At this point, I want to add a new prediction: An entire generation will grow up dumber than now – due to the Dumbphone.

The distraction caused by smartphones at home and in the classroom will make an entire generations less intelligent. Due to our cowardness: in western culture we are not capable to say no anymore. Research showed already that pupils in smartphone free schools perform and learn better – and smartphone addicts don’t.

And the future robot society needs non-addicts. The real hunt in the labor market of the future will be for smartphonefree people that know how to handle human contact  – the one thing robots are not good at…