My First Computer Didn't Want My Attention

```

I was nine years old when my grandfather bought two computers.

One was a Commodore VIC-20.

The other was a Commodore 64.

The VIC-20 became my birthday present.

The Commodore 64 stayed at Grandpa's house.

Officially, it was his.

Unofficially, whenever he wasn't using it, it was ours.

I learned BASIC on the VIC-20, but I dreamed on the Commodore 64. It had color. It had sound. It had impossibly smooth games. Compared to the VIC, it felt like stepping into the future.

Looking back, I realize something else about those afternoons.

The computer wasn't competing with my grandfather.

It was something we shared.

We'd type in programs from magazines, marvel when they actually worked, laugh when they didn't, and spend an hour hunting for the missing comma that had somehow become a syntax error. The computer didn't replace the relationship.

It became part of it.

The Mathematics of Friction

The older I get, the more convinced I become that civilization is built on carefully designed friction.

Doors have locks.

Cars have brakes.

Firearms have safeties.

Credit cards have PIN numbers.

None of these exist because we hate convenience.

They exist because convenience without restraint eventually becomes catastrophe.

Then along came smartphones.

For the first time in human history, we engineered a device whose designers spent billions of dollars trying to remove every last bit of friction between impulse and action.

Bored?

Scroll.

Lonely?

Scroll.

Anxious?

Scroll.

Happy?

Celebrate by scrolling.

Waiting thirty seconds in line?

Good heavens, don't make eye contact with another human being. Scroll immediately.

As a mathematics teacher, I recognize an optimization problem when I see one.

Silicon Valley optimized for engagement.

Unfortunately, engagement is not the same thing as flourishing.

Commodore's Delicious Irony

This week I discovered that Commodore—the company whose machines shaped my childhood—is introducing a flip phone— Commodore's Callback 8020 flip phone.

Normally I'd dismiss this as cynical retro branding.

Except...

They blocked social media.

They blocked web browsers.

They deliberately added friction.

The phone snaps shut.

Texting uses predictive T9 instead of an infinite glass keyboard.

Notifications are reduced to a handful of little lights.

In other words...

Someone finally remembered that technology is supposed to be a tool—not a habitat.

Close the phone. Open your life.

Imagine pitching that idea to a modern tech company.

"So what's our strategy for maximizing user engagement?"

"We don't."

"How do we increase screen time?"

"We're actually trying to reduce it."

"Then...how do we monetize addiction?"

"We don't."

Silence.

Then security escorts you from the building.

The Greatest User Interface Ever Invented

One of the smartest features of every flip phone wasn't software.

It was physics.

When you closed the lid...

The conversation ended.

That simple motion was a declaration.

"I'm done."

Modern smartphones have no such concept.

Every swipe suggests another.

Every video leads to another.

Every article becomes five more.

Every notification breeds three others.

The machine has no stopping point because stopping isn't profitable.

Mathematically speaking, the algorithm has no maximum.

Only an asymptote approaching all of your waking hours.

We Didn't Need Smarter Phones

Here's the part that surprised me.

The Commodore Callback isn't anti-technology.

It runs maps.

Messaging.

Music.

Ride-sharing.

Calendars.

Podcasts.

The boring, useful things.

It simply refuses to become a slot machine.

That's not nostalgia.

That's engineering.

There's a profound difference.

My VIC-20 Never Interrupted Dinner

My VIC-20 never buzzed during supper.

My grandfather's Commodore 64 never demanded attention while we were talking.

Those machines waited for us.

They never insisted that we wait for them.

That's the difference.

Early personal computers were remarkably patient.

Modern smartphones are remarkably impatient.

One invited curiosity.

The other manufactures compulsion.

Maybe Progress Took a Wrong Turn

For decades we've measured technological progress by asking one question:

"What else can this device do?"

Perhaps we've been asking the wrong question.

Maybe the better question is:

"What should this device refuse to do?"

That's not technological regression.

That's maturity.

Mathematics teaches us that constraints often produce better solutions than unlimited possibilities.

A sonnet is beautiful because of its rules.

Chess is fascinating because every piece has limits.

Even calculus works because we define boundaries.

Yet somewhere along the way we decided the ideal phone should have none.

No boundaries.

No stopping point.

No off switch for the human mind.

Perhaps the future of technology isn't making smarter devices.

Perhaps it's making wiser ones.

If that's true, then Commodore may pull off one of history's greatest plot twists.

Forty years ago they gave a nine-year-old boy his first computer.

Today they may be trying to give that same boy his attention back.

If only BASIC had included one more command.

READY.
```

RUN LIFE.

The Opportunity Cost of Looking Down

```

One of the first things you learn as a mathematics teacher is that distractions are cumulative.

One student glances at a phone.

Another notices.

A third wonders what everyone else is looking at.

Within thirty seconds, the classroom has undergone what mathematicians call an exponential process and what teachers call “Tuesday.”

For years, I’ve listened to the debate over cell phones in schools. One side argues that phones are powerful educational tools. The other side argues they are powerful distractions.

As a math teacher, I have a radical proposal.

Both sides are correct.

A chainsaw is also a powerful tool. I simply don’t hand one to a room full of fourteen-year-olds and ask them to “use it responsibly” while I explain quadratic functions.

The growing movement to ban phones in schools is often portrayed as old teachers trying to drag students back to 1987. I don’t think that’s what it’s about at all. It’s about acknowledging a simple mathematical fact.

Attention is finite.

Every notification subtracts from something.

And subtraction has consequences.

The New Imaginary Friends

When I was growing up, adults worried about children with imaginary friends.

How adorable.

Now we’ve created an entire civilization populated by imaginary friendships.

Your imaginary friend never existed.

Your social media friends mostly don’t either.

They exist as profiles, avatars, filtered photographs, carefully edited vacations, and inspirational quotations pasted over sunsets they didn’t actually watch because they were busy taking seventeen pictures of them.

The old imaginary friend was invented by a lonely child.

The modern imaginary friend is invented by Silicon Valley, monetized by advertisers, and carried around in your pocket.

Frankly, the old version had better manners.

It didn’t interrupt dinner.

It didn’t demand your attention every ninety seconds.

It didn’t convince you that your worth could be measured by tiny red notification bubbles.

Most importantly, it didn’t replace your actual friends while insisting it was helping you connect with them.

The Equation Nobody Likes

Recently I read an article that described a study whose conclusions were both obvious and heartbreaking.

Teenagers who perceive that their parents are frequently distracted by their phones are significantly more likely to develop insecure attachment styles.

Read that sentence again.

The problem isn’t just that kids are staring at phones.

It’s that parents are too.

Somewhere along the way we began worrying that our children were becoming addicted to screens while simultaneously demonstrating exactly how to become addicted to screens.

Children are extraordinary mathematicians.

Not with algebra, perhaps.

But with attention.

They notice every variable.

If Mom looks at her phone fifty times during dinner, that is data.

If Dad says, “Just a second,” every evening while scrolling through strangers’ opinions, that is data.

If every conversation competes with a glowing rectangle, children solve the equation rather quickly.

The conclusion isn’t complicated.

The phone wins.

Not because parents love their phones more than their children.

Because phones are easier than children.

Let’s be honest.

A smartphone never cries.

It never gets its feelings hurt.

It doesn’t ask difficult questions.

It doesn’t need forgiveness.

It doesn’t need patience.

It doesn’t slam a bedroom door.

It doesn’t announce at 10:30 p.m. that tomorrow’s history project requires a tri-fold board, glitter, and the construction skills of a medieval cathedral builder.

It simply asks for another swipe.

Human beings are wonderfully inconvenient.

Phones are frictionless.

Guess which one evolution did not prepare our brains to resist.

Why Schools Are Finally Saying “Enough”

I’ve watched the tide turn.

District after district is locking phones away during the school day.

Predictably, critics declare this an assault on freedom.

Perhaps.

Seatbelts are also an assault on freedom.

So are speed limits.

We impose constraints because human beings routinely mistake temptation for self-control.

No mathematics teacher has ever walked into class and thought,

“You know what these students need before learning trigonometry? Three hundred simultaneous TikTok feeds.”

Learning requires sustained attention.

Attention requires the absence of constant interruption.

This should not be controversial.

It should be arithmetic.

The Great Irony

Here’s the joke that isn’t funny.

We invented social media to become more connected.

Instead, parents compete with phones.

Teachers compete with phones.

Friends compete with phones.

Spouses compete with phones.

Reality competes with phones.

The only thing that never has to compete with a phone...

...is another phone.

We’ve built the most sophisticated communication system in human history while becoming strangely unavailable to the people sitting three feet away.

The machine doesn’t love us.

It doesn’t even know we exist.

It simply rents our attention by the minute.

A Mathematical Proof

Suppose your child asks you to watch something.

Suppose your phone vibrates at exactly the same moment.

Only one receives your full attention.

That isn’t philosophy.

That’s optimization under constraints.

The variable you maximize becomes the value you teach.

Children don’t remember your Screen Time report.

They remember whether they had to compete with it.

Perhaps that’s why the old imaginary friend now seems almost wholesome.

At least everyone knew it wasn’t real.

Today’s imaginary friends have profile pictures, follower counts, and blue verification badges.

They congratulate us on birthdays because an algorithm reminded them we were alive.

They know what we had for lunch but not how we’re doing.

They have transformed loneliness from a childhood phase into a quarterly earnings report.

As mathematics teachers, we often remind students that every choice has an opportunity cost.

Perhaps it’s time adults remembered the lesson.

Every minute spent looking down is a minute not spent looking at someone who loves you.

Unlike your phone, they eventually stop asking for your attention.

Not because they don’t need it.

Because they finally learn the answer.

```

The Great AI Panic of 2026: What Calculators, Socrates, and Blue Books Can Teach Us About Assessment

By Dr. Daniel Jackson
Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Maine at Farmington

I should begin with an important clarification.

I am not the Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1.

Although I admit it is suspicious that both of us spend our careers deciphering mysterious artifacts left behind by advanced civilizations. The television version had alien glyphs. I have student submissions generated by ChatGPT.

Recently, the Los Angeles Times published a collection of letters responding to concerns about AI and academic cheating. Several readers proposed a straightforward solution: bring back blue books, handwritten exams, in-person proctoring, and perhaps, if we’re feeling especially nostalgic, cursive penmanship (Los Angeles Times, 2026).

As a mathematics professor, I am sympathetic.

Every generation of educators eventually arrives at the same conclusion:

The future would be much easier if students would simply stop living in it.

The logic goes something like this:

Students are using AI.

Therefore, we should return to assessment methods from before AI existed.

Following this reasoning, the invention of automobiles should have triggered a renaissance in horseback riding. The calculator should have revived the abacus industry. Google should have inspired a nationwide return to card catalogs. Smartphones should have brought back switchboard operators.

And yet history stubbornly refuses to cooperate.

The Educational Panic Hall of Fame

The current AI panic is remarkably familiar.

When writing became widespread, Socrates worried that people would stop exercising their memories. Writing, he argued, would create the appearance of wisdom without genuine understanding.

Then came the printing press.

Books suddenly became available to ordinary people. Predictably, authorities worried that students would acquire information too easily and lose respect for traditional gatekeepers.

Centuries later, calculators arrived.

I still meet mathematicians who fondly recall predictions that calculators would destroy mathematics education. Instead, calculators mostly destroyed long division worksheets.

The internet was next.

Search engines, Wikipedia, online databases, and digital libraries were all supposed to usher in an age of intellectual decline. Yet universities somehow survived despite students having access to more information than the Library of Alexandria ever dreamed possible.

Now AI has arrived, and once again we are hearing a familiar refrain:

Students can access knowledge too easily.

The irony is that many of these concerns are being voiced from devices that contain calculators, encyclopedias, libraries, maps, translation tools, statistical software, and instant communication with nearly every human being on Earth.

Apparently all those technologies were acceptable.

This one crossed a line.

The Real Problem Is Not Cheating

What’s fascinating is that some of the most important recent research is arriving at a very different conclusion.

A major Cornell University study analyzing responses from more than 95,000 students found widespread use of generative AI and concluded that the central problem is not merely misconduct but assessment validity. The researchers argued that assessment reform is now “necessary and urgent” because traditional assignments may no longer provide reliable evidence of learning or competence (Cornell Chronicle, 2026).

Read that again.

Not “we need better surveillance.”

Not “we need stronger plagiarism detectors.”

Not “we need more webcams.”

We need better assessments.

This distinction matters.

Educational researchers increasingly argue that discussions about cheating are often obscuring a more important question:

Are our assessments actually measuring learning?

As a mathematician, I find this question much more interesting.

Suppose I assign fifty algebra problems.

A student completes them.

A symbolic algebra system completes them.

An AI completes them.

A graphing calculator completes parts of them.

What exactly was I trying to measure?

If the answer is “the ability to produce answers,” then technology has been threatening that assessment model since at least the 1970s.

If the answer is “the ability to reason mathematically,” then perhaps I should be assessing reasoning more directly.

AI did not create this problem.

It merely exposed it.

The Curious Case of the Blue Book Revival

Many universities are responding to AI by reviving handwritten, in-person examinations.

To be clear, there is a place for proctored exams.

They can be useful.

Sometimes.

But let us not pretend that the blue book is an educational silver bullet.

Imagine a hospital announcing:

We have become concerned that physicians rely too heavily on modern diagnostic tools. Therefore, all medical licensing examinations will now be conducted using only handwritten observations and nineteenth-century equipment.

Patients would flee the building.

Professional competence is demonstrated in the environment in which professionals actually work.

Engineers use software.

Scientists use computational tools.

Accountants use spreadsheets.

Programmers use AI assistants.

Researchers use search engines.

Writers use editors.

Mathematicians use calculators, computer algebra systems, statistical software, numerical modeling tools, and increasingly AI.

Why would we design assessments that systematically exclude the tools graduates will actually use?

Imagine training airline pilots by insisting they never touch an autopilot system because “real pilots should navigate by hand.”

That may sound rigorous.

It also sounds like a great way to produce graduates unprepared for their profession.

What UNESCO Thinks Is Worth Measuring

One of the most thoughtful recent discussions comes from UNESCO’s work on assessment in the age of AI.

Their argument is refreshingly simple.

When machines can generate essays, solve routine problems, retrieve information instantly, and assist with complex tasks, education should focus less on rote reproduction and more on higher-order thinking, creativity, judgment, ethical reasoning, and problem solving (UNESCO, 2025).

In mathematics, this means moving beyond:

• Can you execute a procedure?
• Can you reproduce an example?
• Can you remember a formula?

Toward questions like:

• Is this solution reasonable?
• What assumptions are hidden here?
• How would you verify the result?
• What happens when the model fails?
• Which method would you choose and why?
• How would you explain this to another person?

Those are much harder questions.

For humans.

And for AI.

The Great AI Detector Fantasy

Of course, some institutions have attempted a technological solution.

If students use AI, perhaps software can detect AI.

Unfortunately, reality once again refuses to cooperate.

MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies notes that AI detectors have significant reliability problems and can generate false accusations against students. OpenAI itself discontinued its own AI detection tool because it could not achieve sufficient accuracy (MIT Sloan, 2025).

As mathematicians would say, the false positive rate matters.

A lot.

Imagine a smoke detector that occasionally accused your refrigerator of being on fire.

You would not trust it.

Yet some institutions have been tempted to trust AI detectors with consequences far more serious than a nuisance alarm.

The result is a peculiar technological arms race:

Students use AI.

Faculty use AI to detect AI.

Students use AI to evade AI detection.

Faculty use AI to improve AI detection.

At some point, one wonders whether the humans involved might be able to contribute something useful.

Authentic Assessment Is Not a New Idea

Ironically, many of the solutions being proposed are not radical at all.

They are simply forms of authentic assessment that educators have discussed for decades.

Consider the following assignment:

Use any resources available—including AI—to analyze a real-world problem. Document your process. Explain your decisions. Evaluate the reliability of your sources. Critique the AI’s suggestions. Defend your conclusions.

That assignment measures something meaningful.

Students must exercise judgment.

They must evaluate evidence.

They must identify errors.

They must synthesize information.

They must communicate clearly.

Most importantly, they must do exactly what educated professionals actually do.

Research is increasingly finding that AI-inclusive assessments can provide richer evidence of learning when students are required to explain their reasoning, critique AI outputs, and justify their decisions rather than merely produce answers.

In other words:

The important question is no longer:

Can students generate an answer without assistance?

The important question is:

Can students think effectively while using the tools available to them?

Those are very different questions.

The Future Belongs to Tool Users

The students graduating from UMF today will enter workplaces saturated with AI.

Nobody will reward them for refusing to use available tools.

Nobody will say:

Congratulations on solving that problem without technology. We don’t care that it took three days longer and produced a worse result.

The competitive advantage will belong to people who can combine human judgment with technological capability.

The skill is not avoiding AI.

The skill is knowing when to trust it, when to challenge it, when to ignore it, and when to use it effectively.

That is a profoundly human capability.

And it is exactly the sort of thing higher education should assess.

So yes, let’s keep some blue books around.

They make excellent historical artifacts.

Right next to the slide rules, overhead projectors, card catalogs, and newspaper editorials predicting that calculators would destroy civilization.

Meanwhile, the rest of us should get back to the much harder task of designing assessments that reflect the world our students actually inhabit.

After all, authentic assessment has never been about preventing students from using tools.

It has always been about determining whether they can think.

Even when the tools get better.

---

References

Cornell Chronicle. (2026, May 21). Widespread AI misuse means higher ed must rethink assessment.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/05/widespread-ai-misuse-means-higher-ed-must-rethink-assessment

Los Angeles Times. (2026, June 16). Letters to the Editor: To combat AI cheating, colleges should go back to basics for exams.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2026-06-16/colleges-ai-cheating-exams

MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies. (2025). AI Detectors Don’t Work. Here’s What to Do Instead.
https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/teach/ai-detectors-dont-work

UNESCO. (2025). What’s Worth Measuring? The Future of Assessment in the AI Age.
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/whats-worth-measuring-future-assessment-ai-age