Giving Poor Kids Computers Changes Nothing  A blog about
business and economics. May 23 2013 2:10 PM  Giving Poor Kids
Computers Does Nothing Whatsoever To Their Educational Outcomes
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY CEDRIC SIMON - Learning, no with
computers.  Photo by PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty Images  I'm
always glad to see a null finding reported, so I liked this
paper (PDF) by Robert Fairlie and Jonathan Robinson about what
happened when they gave computers to randomly selected
California schoolkids whose families had no computer at home.
The short answer is nothing.  The slightly longer answer is that
the kids reported an almost 50 percent increase in time spent
using a computer, with the time divided between doing homework,
playing games, and social network. But there was no improvement
in academic achievement or attendance or anything else. There
wasn't even an improvement in computer skills. At the same time,
there was no negative impact either. The access to extra
computer games didn't reduce total time spent