But evolution didn’t just lengthen childhood to make learning possible. It also installed three strong motivations to do things that make learning easy and likely: motivations for free play, attunement, and social learning. In the days of play-based childhood, the norm was that when school let out, children were out playing with each other, unsupervised, in ways that let them satisfy these motives. But in the transition to phone-based childhood, the designers of smartphones, video game systems, social media, and other addictive technologies lured kids into the virtual world, where they no
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