He saw what technology was doing to students' brains before it was a headline.
Kevin J. Roberts, M.A., did his graduate work in neuroscience and went on to collaborate with numerous researchers and clinicians, including psychiatrist Dr. David Rosenberg of Children's Hospital of Michigan on a program featured on ABC's 20/20, examining the mental health and brain differences in screen-addicted youth. He has since presented Grand Rounds at Children's Hospital of Michigan — twice — and has maintained direct clinical affiliations with treatment centers serving compulsive technology users for over two decades.
That clinical foundation is what separates his voice from the crowded field of AI commentators. When Cyber Junkie was published in 2010 — examining what compulsive screen use does to a developing brain — screen addiction was not yet a mainstream public health conversation. His newest book, The Effort Crisis, examines what AI is doing to the act of learning itself: not whether students are cheating, but whether the effort required to build real knowledge is being quietly eliminated.
Of the 36 states that have published AI education guidance, only one asks the question that matters most: what should students still do themselves before turning to AI? One state out of fifty. The Effort Crisis argues this is the central question in education right now — and America's AI Report Card found that 49 states aren't asking it.