do computers have a negative effect on scholastic achievement?

Oh no!  We just gave Alexa a laptop for her graduation.  We may have jeopardized her college career...
--pws

excerpts from http://www.slate.com/id/2192798/

So will kids use these subsidized computing resources to prepare for the demands of the 21^st-century job market? Or do computers just serve as a 21^st-century substitute for that more venerable time-waster—the television?

New research by economists Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches provides an answer: For many kids, computers are indeed more of a distraction than a learning opportunity. The two researchers surveyed households that applied to Euro 200, a voucher distribution program in Romania designed to help poor households defray the cost of buying a computer for their children. It turns out that kids in households lucky enough to get computer vouchers spent a lot less time watching TV—but that's where the good news ends. "Vouchered" kids also spent less time doing homework, got lower grades, and reported lower educational aspirations than the "unvouchered" kids.

This is certainly not the first attempt to measure the costs and benefits of giving computers to kids. Some earlier studies also found that computers have a negative effect on scholastic achievement. Others found the opposite.