A quiet transformation is unfolding in schools: commercial technology is rapidly reshaping how children learn, often without much public debate or inquiry.
From the near-ubiquity of Google and Microsoft to speculative AI products such as Century Tech, big and ed tech alike promise “personalised learning” while harvesting vast amounts of data and turning education to monetisable widgets and digital badges.
The so-called digitalisation of education is far less revolutionary in reality. Children sit at screens making PowerPoint slides or clicking through apps such as Dr Frost or Quizlet. Lessons are often punctuated by pop-up adverts and cookie-consent banners – the gateway to surveillance and profiling. Others chase Duolingo streaks, supposedly learning French, scramble coins or fight for leaderboard spots on Blooket. Teachers, meanwhile, are handed dashboards from platforms such as Arbor or NetSupport, where pupils appear as scores and traffic-light charts – a thin proxy for the complexity of classroom life. All the while, these systems are entangled in corporate turf wars and profit-making.
Across this work, I’ve seen echoes of the same tactics once used by big tobacco (on health): manufacture doubt to delay regulation and market uncertainty as progress. Parents often feel a quiet unease watching their children absorbed by screens, yet worry that pushing back might leave them behind. That self-doubt is no accident. It mirrors the marketing logic that kept people smoking for decades – big tobacco sowed doubt and turned public concern into private guilt by funding skewed research insisting that there is “not enough evidence” of harm, shifting responsibility on to individuals and pouring vast sums into lobbying to delay regulation.
As these systems scale and cheapen, however, a troubling divide is emerging: mass, app-based instruction for the many, and human tutoring and intellectual exchange reserved for the elite. What is sold as the “democratisation” of education may be entrenching further inequality. Take Photomath, with more 300m downloads: snap a photo of an equation and it spits out a solution. Convenient, yes; no need for a tutor, perhaps – but it reduces maths to copying steps and strips away the dialogue and feedback that help deepen understanding.
Amid this digital acceleration, parents’ unease is not misplaced. The industry sells these tools as progress – personalised, engaging, efficient – but the reality is more troubling. The apps are designed to extract data with every click and deploy nudges to maximise screen time: Times Tables Rockstars doles out coins for correct answers; ClassDojo awards points for compliant behaviour; Kahoot! keeps students absorbed through countdown clocks and leaderboards. These are different veneers of the same psychological lever that keeps children scrolling social media late at night. Even if such tools raise test scores, the question remains: at what cost to the relationships in the classroom or to child development and wellbeing?
And here the gap between promise and reality becomes clear: for all the talk of equity and personalisation, the evidence base for ed tech is narrow, industry-driven and shaky at best. There’s little record of the time children spend on school devices, what platforms they use, or the impact these have on learning – let alone on wellbeing and development. One study found that to achieve the equivalent of a single GCSE grade increase, pupils would need to spend hundreds of hours on one maths app in a year – with no evidence this closed attainment gaps for the least advantaged. The absence of definitive evidence is spun as proof of safety while digital promises are built on the appearance of certainty where none exists.
Meanwhile, UK public funding continues to support classroom digitisation, with calls for AI even in early years settings. Schools in England feel pressured to demonstrate innovation even without strong evidence it improves learning. A study published this year by the National Education Union found that standardised curricula often delivered via commercial platforms – are now widespread. Yet many teachers say these systems reduce their professional autonomy, offer no real workload relief and leave them excluded from curriculum decisions.
Moreover, all this is wrapped in the language of children’s “digital rights”. But rights are meaningless without corresponding obligations – especially from those with power. Writing privacy policies to meet data privacy laws isn’t enough. Ed tech companies must be subject to enforceable obligations – regular audits, public reporting and independent oversight – to ensure their tools support children’s learning, a demand widely echoed across the education sector.
It’s time to ask tougher questions. Why are apps rooted in gamification and behaviour design – techniques developed to maximise screen time – now standard in classrooms? Why is a child’s future now assumed to be digital by default? These are not fringe concerns. They cut to the heart of what education is for. Learning is not a commercial transaction. Childhood is not a market opportunity. As educational theorist Gert Biesta reminds us, education serves not only for qualifications and socialisation, but also to support children in becoming autonomous, responsible subjects. That last aim – subjectification – is precisely what gets lost when learning is reduced to gamified clicks and algorithmic nudges.
We can’t stop technology from entering children’s lives, but we can demand that it serves education, not industry. My message to parents is this: alongside teachers, your voices are crucial in holding tech companies to account for what they build, how they sell it and the values they embed in classrooms.
Dr Velislava Hillman is an academic, teacher, writer and consultant on educational technology and policy. She is the author of Taming Edtech
