The Attention economy

Today's headlines once again turned to children's relationship with social media, as France moved closer to banning social media access for children under the age of 15 ahead of the new school year.

Whether the focus is smartphones in schools, age verification or online safety, the conversation often begins with the same question.

Should children have access to social media?

Perhaps the more important question is different.

What happens when education is no longer competing for knowledge, but for attention?

For centuries, education's greatest challenge was expanding access to knowledge. Libraries made information available. Universities preserved and advanced it. The internet made it instantaneous. Artificial intelligence has changed the equation once again. Questions that might once have required months, or even years, of academic research can now be explored, analysed and synthesised in a matter of seconds.

Knowledge has never been more accessible.

The ability to think critically about it has never been more important.

At the same time, education has entered a new reality.

For generations, classrooms were among the few places where knowledge could be systematically accessed and shared. Today, before many children even arrive at school, they may already have watched short-form videos, interacted with artificial intelligence, received dozens of notifications or consumed hours of digital content.

By the time the first lesson begins, the classroom is no longer competing with yesterday's homework.

It is competing with an entire digital ecosystem designed by some of the world's most sophisticated companies to capture and retain attention.

Attention has become one of the world's most valuable commodities.

The world's largest technology companies compete for it relentlessly. Every notification, recommendation and infinite scroll is carefully engineered to keep us engaged for a little longer. For adults, this demands discipline. For children, whose brains are still developing the executive functions responsible for attention, impulse control and emotional regulation, the challenge is even greater.

The evidence continues to evolve, but the direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear. According to the OECD, students who spend a moderate amount of time on social media tend to perform better academically than heavy users, with outcomes declining as daily use increases beyond around three hours. UNESCO has also warned that the short-form, instant-gratification design of many social media platforms may make sustained concentration on learning more difficult, particularly for children and adolescents.

At the same time, cyberbullying has become one of the defining challenges of the digital age. Across OECD countries, around one in six young people aged 11 to 15 report having experienced cyberbullying, while UNICEF estimates that around one in three young people has been affected globally, depending on the countries and measures used. Unlike previous generations, conflict no longer ends when the school day finishes. For many children, it follows them home in their pocket.

None of this makes technology the problem.

Digital platforms have transformed access to education, connected classrooms across continents, created new opportunities for collaboration and opened doors for learners who may previously have been excluded. Artificial intelligence, adaptive learning technologies and digital tools are already reshaping how students learn, how teachers teach and how institutions operate.

The question is therefore not whether technology belongs in education.

It undoubtedly does.

The question is whether schools can prepare students to thrive in an increasingly digital world while also protecting the very capabilities that technology increasingly competes for.

Preparing students for tomorrow's workforce means equipping them with artificial intelligence literacy, digital collaboration skills and the confidence to navigate an increasingly connected world. Preparing them for life requires something equally important. It means nurturing critical thinking, media literacy, healthy digital habits, respectful online behaviour and the judgement to recognise when technology is serving them, rather than the other way around.

UNESCO's definition of digital literacy rightly extends far beyond technical competence to include the ability to access, evaluate and use information responsibly. Yet the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and social media raises a further question.

Perhaps digital literacy should no longer be defined solely by the ability to use technology. Perhaps it should also be measured by the ability to question it, manage it and, when necessary, step away from it.

The debate sparked by today's headlines is therefore about far more than smartphones or social media.

It is about redefining one of education's oldest responsibilities.

For centuries, schools existed to provide access to knowledge.

Today, knowledge is everywhere.

Perhaps the defining challenge of education in the twenty-first century is no longer making knowledge accessible.

It is making learning compelling enough to earn, and deserve, a child's attention.

Because the future will not belong to those who reject technology, nor to those who embrace it without question.

It will belong to those who know how to harness its extraordinary potential while protecting the qualities that make us most human.