Weekly Top Five Articles
Ed tech at school causes brain damage, emotionally abused children hate themselves as adults, and more. . .
Here’s what stood out this week. . .
(1) The Devil’s Plan To Destroy Your Kids At School: Doctor on How Classroom Screen Time Hurts Kids’ Cognitive Development
The use of education technology in the classroom leads to cognitive decline. Parents should launch a revolt! Screens in the classroom damages your child’s brain. Why did we allow this?
In testimony delivered before Congress and later circulated through a widely viewed C-SPAN clip, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a former classroom teacher turned cognitive neuroscientist, issued a stark warning about the unintended consequences of digital technology in American education. Speaking as both a scientist and an educator, Horvath situated his remarks within a troubling historical reversal. For more than a century, children consistently outperformed their parents on measures of cognitive ability, including attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive functioning, and general intelligence. That steady upward trend, long attributed to expanded schooling and improved instruction, abruptly stalled and then reversed with Generation Z.
Horvath argues that this decline cannot be explained by biology, teacher quality, or student motivation. Schools, he notes, largely look the same as they did decades ago, and human evolution does not change on a fifteen-year timeline. Instead, he identifies a single structural shift beginning in the late 2000s: the rapid and largely unregulated introduction of screens and digital platforms into classrooms. One-to-one devices, online assessments, and constant connectivity became standard practice without independent, long-term evidence of educational benefit.
Drawing on international datasets such as PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS, Horvath explains that higher levels of classroom computer use are consistently associated with lower academic performance across reading, mathematics, and science. This pattern appears across more than eighty countries and persists even when accounting for testing format effects. U.S. data tell the same story. When states adopt one-to-one technology programs, academic gains typically plateau and then decline. Meta-analyses reinforce these findings, showing that most general-purpose educational technologies perform worse than ordinary classroom instruction, with only narrowly constrained tools, such as adaptive drills for basic skills, offering modest gains.
Crucially, Horvath emphasizes that the problem is not poor implementation but biological mismatch. Human learning evolved through sustained attention, social interaction, and deep cognitive processing. Screens, regardless of size or who provides them, train habits of skimming, task switching, and fragmented attention. Research consistently shows stronger comprehension and retention from reading on paper and writing by hand than from screens and typing.
Horvath closes by warning policymakers against redefining educational standards to accommodate digital tools, citing changes in reading assessments that prioritize skimming over comprehension. Doing so, he argues, represents not innovation but surrender. His call to Congress is clear: demand independent evidence, protect children’s cognitive development, and ensure that technology serves learning rather than reshaping it to fit the screen.
(2) “A feasibility and acceptability study of liberate: an online, peer-supported, psychoeducational intervention for ultra processed food addiction.,” by Bennett E, Lycett D, Whelan M, Bellamy EL, Banks S and Patel R, Front. Psychiatry (2025)
Food addiction is real. It’s primarily the stuff we but up and down the aisle at the grocery store, not what’s on the perimeter. Potatoes chips are manufactured to be addictive, blueberries are not.
The modern industrial food landscape, teeming with engineered hyper-palatability, has birthed a neurobiological crisis: ultra-processed food addiction (UPFA). In a compelling study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers evaluate “Liberate,” an online, peer-supported intervention designed to dismantle the compulsive cycles of addictive consumption. Unlike traditional weight-loss paradigms that often weaponize shame, Liberate shifts the locus of recovery toward psychoeducation and personalized abstinence. Quantitative results showed statistically significant reductions in food addiction symptoms and cravings, alongside sustained improvements in mental wellbeing when purging UPFAs from their diet.
The study, utilizing a mixed-methods feasibility design with 86 participants, reveals the profound efficacy of treating UPFA through the lens of substance use disorders. Quantitatively, the results were striking: symptoms measured by the Yale Food Addiction Scale plummeted, with mean scores dropping from 7.8 to 4.4 at the six-month follow-up. Furthermore, severe addiction rates were slashed by 36%, falling from 70% at baseline to 34% by the study’s end. Mental well-being scores saw a clinically significant increase of 5.4 points, suggesting that reclaiming agency over one’s neurochemistry yields immediate psychological dividends.
Qualitative analysis highlights the “liberating” power of understanding addiction’s biological machinery. Participants reported that learning “it’s not my fault” was transformative, dissolving the stigma of “laziness” often reinforced by commercial weight-loss groups. The intervention’s “traffic light” system for food (prioritizing whole-food abstinence over mere moderation) mirrors established protocols for drug and alcohol recovery, offering a robust framework for those whom moderation has failed.
While the study’s small, non-randomized sample limits broad generalizability, its 69% retention rate underscores high acceptability. As participants expressed a desire for integration into mainstream primary care, the research challenges the medical establishment to recognize UPFA as a legitimate neurobiological condition. Liberate demonstrates that by combining scientific literacy with communal support, we can begin to address the systemic “food noise” of the 21st century.
Parents can help by avoiding ultra-processed foods for their children whenever possible. And no, “everything in moderation” often serves only to justify addiction. You cannot “moderate” highly addictive consumables, especially those chemically engineered in a lab to be addictive, like UPFs. Do not be hoodwinked.
(3) “Are you suffering from “cognitive atrophy” due to AI overuse?,” by Noel Carroll, PsyPost (January 22, 2026)
In a recent report, Noel Carroll argues that the rapid normalization of generative artificial intelligence is quietly eroding a core human capacity: the disciplined struggle of thinking itself. Carroll anchors his warning in a striking institutional failure. The retirement of West Midlands police chief Craig Guildford followed revelations that AI-generated evidence had been used incorrectly in a high-stakes decision to ban Israeli football fans from a match. For Carroll, this episode is not an isolated scandal but a symptom of a deeper cultural pathology he describes as “cognitive atrophy.”
Carroll defines cognitive atrophy as the gradual weakening of mental faculties when tasks such as writing, analysis, judgment, and creative problem-solving are routinely outsourced to AI systems. Generative AI, he reminds readers, does not understand truth or meaning. It predicts plausible language based on patterns. When institutions and individuals treat such systems as oracles rather than tools, error becomes systematic and accountability dissolves.
Drawing on emerging research, Carroll notes that heavy AI use among university students is associated with increased procrastination, memory loss, and poorer academic performance, particularly under conditions of time pressure. The problem is not efficiency but displacement. When AI replaces the formative work of grappling with uncertainty, individuals lose cognitive stamina, tolerance for frustration, and confidence in their own judgment.
Carroll identifies several warning signs: abandoning rough drafts in favor of instant outputs, shrinking patience for ambiguity, and a reflexive dependence on AI validation before making decisions. Over time, users risk becoming decision-approvers rather than decision-makers.
The report does not advocate abandoning AI. Instead, Carroll calls for “responsible autonomy,” a recalibration that restores friction to thinking. He recommends committing to sustained human effort before consulting AI, approaching AI outputs with active skepticism, and preserving protected spaces where complex tasks are performed without algorithmic assistance. Ultimately, Carroll urges readers to evaluate the return on habit. Speed alone is not intelligence. If AI merely replaces skills once possessed, it does not enhance human cognition. It hollows it out.
(4) “Both Democrats and Republicans justify undemocratic actions that help their party,” by Karina Petrova, PsyPost (January 21, 2026)
Yep.
In a report examining the psychology of democratic backsliding, Petrova analyzes new research suggesting that Americans’ commitment to democratic norms is less principled than situational. Drawing on two experiments conducted by political scientist Paul E. Teas, the study challenges the assumption that today’s partisan divide reflects fundamentally different understandings of democracy. Instead, Petrova reports, attitudes toward democratic rule bending are often shaped by whether one’s own political side stands to benefit.
The research tests competing theories of partisan behavior. One holds that Democrats and Republicans are equally prone to justify undemocratic actions when doing so advances their interests. Another claims Republicans are uniquely more willing to tolerate norm violations. A third proposes that the parties value different democratic goods, such as voter access versus election security. Teas designed experiments to determine whether apparent asymmetries reflect deep moral commitments or issue specific reactions.
In the first study, nearly one thousand participants evaluated hypothetical scenarios involving restrictions on mail in voting, ignored cybersecurity warnings, and vetoes of opposition legislation. Across parties, participants were more forgiving of violations that helped their side and harsher toward those that hurt it. Yet a notable asymmetry emerged. Republicans were consistently less opposed to restricting mail in voting, even when the policy did not advantage their party. When such violations did help Republicans, their opposition declined more sharply than Democrats’ did in parallel cases. Importantly, Republicans did not redefine these actions as democratic. They labeled them fair, revealing a distinction between democratic principle and competitive justification.
A second study expanded the test to polling place closures and political repression. Here, partisan asymmetry vanished. Democrats and Republicans behaved almost identically, supporting violations when advantageous and opposing them when costly. Petrova concludes that the earlier asymmetry was not a stable psychological trait but a product of intense elite politicization surrounding mail in voting.
The findings suggest democratic norms are fragile and malleable, shaped less by fixed values than by rhetorical environments. Both parties, the research shows, are capable of subordinating process to power when victory feels at stake.
(5) “Emotional abuse predicts self-loathing more strongly than other childhood traumas,” by Karina Petrova, PsyPost (January 19, 2026)
In a report on early psychological formation, Karina Petrova examines new evidence that emotional abuse in childhood exerts a uniquely corrosive influence on adult selfhood. Drawing on a study published in the Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development, Petrova reports that among the many harms children endure, persistent emotional degradation most powerfully predicts what clinicians now call malignant self-regard.
Malignant self-regard describes a dimensional pattern of personality dysfunction marked by chronic shame, harsh self-criticism, guilt, and depressive self-contempt. Rather than fitting neatly into traditional diagnostic boxes, it underlies multiple conditions, including vulnerable narcissism and depressive personality styles. The study, led by Emily R. Barbera and colleagues, sought to isolate which childhood adversities most strongly shape this inner architecture of self-loathing.
Using data from 278 adults who completed validated trauma and personality measures, the researchers applied Bayesian regression to disentangle overlapping forms of maltreatment. Emotional abuse, defined as sustained verbal humiliation, rejection, or degradation by caregivers, emerged as the strongest predictor of malignant self-regard, even when controlling for sexual abuse, neglect, and cumulative trauma exposure. The findings suggest that attacks on a child’s worth leave a deeper psychological imprint than assaults on the body or environment alone.
A striking gender difference also appeared. While emotional abuse predicted malignant self-regard in both men and women, physical abuse was an additional strong predictor for men only. Petrova notes that physical violence may uniquely disrupt male identity formation, particularly norms surrounding strength, resilience, and self-control. When boys internalize physical victimization as personal weakness, shame may become entrenched.
Effective treatment must confront trauma directly, helping patients recognize self-loathing as an internalized echo of emotional abuse itself early.