I find this very hard to believe, you can’t be a part of the modern world and not have basic computer knowledge.
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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Iirc from the abstract. It's talking about a pretty specific laptop made from the OLPC project. That notebook was pretty bad and closed. Argentina had a project like this, but they gave Dell notebooks or something like that with Windows and the most savi kids could hack them and install Linux on them. As an anecdote, one of the most important artists of Argentina started with a computer from that project and a pirated copy of fruity loops.
A lot of kids with laptops have little computer knowledge. It's a tool that they learn the bare minimum to use, not to fix, troubleshoot, or tailor to suit their uses.
I have my skillset because I had to fix all my electronics when they broke and troubleshoot when my programs didn't work the way I wanted.
Academic performance is about performing well on closed book written exams covering narrow subjects. The whole system is designed for 19th century teaching and testing. Using a computer does not help with that whatsoever and may in some cases hurt (by distracting someone who should be studying).
I tutor high school kids as a volunteer (next year will be my 10th year doing so). Over that time period I have noticed a sharp decline in a lot of basic academic skills: mental arithmetic (without a calculator), spelling, grammar, handwriting. These are the very skills one needs to master to perform well on closed book exams. Your ability to research a topic or get help from Google (incl. spellcheck and grammar check in Google Docs) or ChatGPT is of no benefit whatsoever when all you’ve got is a pencil and a piece of paper in front of you.
The post title is hugely overstating the study: one country's laptop-oriented program didn't help academic performance for first adopters.
True. They still have to teach.