In Search of Excellence (for Your Child) - Distraction Defines Disappointment

Well along life's back nine, I can only hope to improve other people's children's academic experience. 

As "brevity is the soul of wit', listen to advice from Jean Twenge in a New York Times (11/16/25) Op-Ed piece entitled, "The Screen that Ate Your Child's Education." 

First, the highlights: 

1) Expanded use of electronic devices correlated with a decline in academic performance...globally. 

2) Teachers strongly favor (83%) the bell-to-bell ban on smartphones. 

3) Globally a nadir of academic performance occurred in 2022, probably a combination of COVID-19 and electronic distraction. 

4) College students who take handwritten notes are 58% more likely to get A's. High device distraction correlated with increased likelihood of failure. 

5) Mandating electronic devices (e.g. computers) doesn't correlate with better performance. 

What does any of this have to do with volleyball? 

"How you do anything is how you do everything." Better study techniques yield better academic performance. Who would have guessed? The best players study the game. 

"Get in your notebook." The best players I coached (Cecilia Kay and Sam Dewey) were avid students of the game and notebook users. 

Apply critical thinking to grow in sport as well as in the classroom. Volleyball players read serves, opponent attacks and defenders. The ability to recognize subtle differences in body position gives players advantages that translate to better play. 

Here are highlights from the article, curated by ChatGPT Plus: 

Digital distraction is devastating for learning. In both college and K–12 settings, the more time students spend on non-school tasks (social media, games, streaming) during class, the lower their exam scores—even after controlling for prior ability.

Unrestricted personal device use in school has quietly eaten away at attention, reading time, and serious academic effort, contributing meaningfully to the learning crisis—not just in the U.S. but globally.

The piece ends with a call for parents, educators, and policymakers to stop assuming kids can “self-regulate” against billion-dollar attention machines and instead redesign the environment—especially school—to put learning ahead of screen entertainment.