Die neuen Lernkiller
"Die neuen Lernkiller" ("The New Learning-Killers") is an essay Spitzer wrote for the German Waldorf-education magazine Erziehungskunst, adapted from a November 2016 talk he gave at a Waldorf-kindergarten association congress on children's right to childhood. He argues that early, heavy exposure to touchscreens displaces the hands-on physical play he says builds fine motor skills and, in his account, later mathematical ability, citing an unnamed study from the Stuttgart area he said found roughly one in four children could no longer skip or hop by their school-entry medical exam. He also argues smartphones interfere with children's and teenagers' capacity to form and act on their own ideas, describing them as a major obstacle to independent will-formation and empathy. TechKids Foundation includes this self-authored magazine essay as Spitzer's own framing of his physical-development and attention concerns for an education-sector audience, summarized here in our own words.
Spitzer cited an unnamed study from the Stuttgart area finding that about one in four children could no longer hop or skip by the time of their school-entry medical examination, which he linked to reduced hands-on physical play in early childhood.
Spitzer, Manfred. "Die neuen Lernkiller." Erziehungskunst, April 2017. Adapted from a talk at the Vereinigung der Waldorfkindergärten congress "Recht auf Kindheit," Hannover, November 19, 2016.