Digital Whipped Cream

In the ’70s, Udo Jürgens sang “Aber bitte mit Sahne” [But please with whipped cream] about the crowd at the cake buffet and their rush for cherry and cream meringue. The song ends tragically for the sugar addicts and cream lovers. Today’s “whipped cream” is digital, served up by Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

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In March, Meta was fined $375 million by the U.S. state of New Mexico after being found guilty of “failing to protect children on its platforms.”¹ Facing further potential fines of $200 billion, the company agreed to a settlement with 29 U.S. states in late August that included a fine of $18 billion and requirements designed to ensure that the “whipped cream” would be made less addictive. In the future, children under 13 will no longer have access to the platforms. For 13- to 17-year-olds, usage will be limited to two hours per day. Will this succeed in curbing the allure of the digital cake buffet? Some scientists have doubts. In a study published in Nature,² they demonstrated that intensive social media use is consistently associated with psychological harm and depression. Social media has an important negative effect through its association with depression, much like the automobile is associated with injuries from crashes and pollution. The social pressure and the addictive effects are so great, that only a minimum age requirement—similar to that for a driver’s license—and intensive, early education would make a difference.

Teachers are no less alarmed and point to the latest PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) study, which was conducted with 70,000 15-year-old students in 91 countries: The result: “The overall performance of OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries declined, with the lowest average levels of performance ever observed in science, reading, and mathematics.”³ European countries performed especially poorly. Headlines in the Nordic countries read “a catastrophe” and “serious education crisis.”⁴ The sentiment in France was similar: “This is an earthquake for our country, which is drifting toward intellectual decline.”⁵ Hesse’s Minister of Education said, “The PISA results for Germany are alarming.”⁶ While in Switzerland, where the results were somewhat better, the NZZ still noted that “a quarter of Swiss children suffer from reading difficulties.”⁷

“Nothing is more urgent than making our school once again a place that nurtures and empowers.”⁸ Of course, everyone agrees with this statement by French presidential candidate Gabriel Attal, but it’s the same old story: more standardized tests, more school hours, stricter supervision, and earlier academic learning. French politician Bruno Le Maire takes the cake by calling for compulsory schooling starting at age one.⁹ The researchers behind the PISA study take a different view. Their recommendation reads like an endorsement for the Waldorf approach: schooling “requires more than strong academic proficiency. As lifelong learning, upskilling, and reskilling become increasingly important, students need the motivation, agency, and learning strategies that enable them to take ownership of their learning throughout their lives.”¹⁰

As a teacher in a Waldorf preschool, I provide the children with an appropriate space, stimulating materials, and sufficient time in which they can allow their own creative and learning initiatives to unfold through free play. Free from theoretical explanations, such experiences are emotionally profound because they are self-initiated and not overcomplicated by analysis. During the following school years, educators and teachers then build upon these joyful experiences. Here, too, independent activity is key. Textbooks are made by the children themselves; they draw and write first, then they read; they explore first, then they understand. What begins as corporeal effort then awakens in the soul as something else. Children connect more deeply with what they subsequently discover on field trips or through visual aids at school because they have previously made an effort to create an inner image themselves. The fact that teachers build long-term relationships with children and parents aligns with another observation by the PISA authors: “Strong relationships with families and teachers also play a critical role in supporting both engagement and achievement.”¹¹ A recommendation from a German teachers’ union aligns with the idea of thematic instruction: “What we must painstakingly teach students—and, incidentally, ourselves as adults as well—is how to slow down and engage deeply with a subject, because that is the only way we learn.”¹²

Sugar and fat provide quick pleasure and energy without requiring any digestive effort. Social media is the same: One gets used to reading, understanding, and learning things without making any effort. Books already sounded the alarm in Udo Jürgens’s day; now, everyone is aware of the problem. The German Federal Government’s Drug and Addiction Commissioner, Hendrik Streeck, asks, “How much more scientific evidence do we actually need before we take action?”¹³ And Le Monde writes in an editorial: “Good science scores are correlated with less use of AI and a controlled use of digital devices for learning purposes.”¹⁴ Whipped cream shouldn’t be banned, but it should be consumed in moderation. For education and culture, much depends on whether we can “consciously moderate” our use of digital programs.

The Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum is organizing a World Teachers’ Conference on the theme “For Learning and for Work,” 30 March to 3 April 2027.

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Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image David Trinks / Unsplash

1. New Mexico Department of Justice, “New Mexico Department of Justice Wins Landmark Verdict Against Meta,” press release, March 24, 2026, NMDOJ.
2. Michael Miller, “Heavy Social Media Use Linked to Depression,” University of Cincinnati, August 31, 2026. M.L. Block, V. Suresh, J. Avant, et al. “Social media use and depression across 11 years of U.S. adult data,” npj Mental Health Res (2026).
3. OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Future-Ready Students, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris.
4. Anne-Françoise Hivert, “PISA 2025: longtemps bons élèves de l’enquête, les pays nordiques meurtris par leur chute” [PISA 2025: Nordic countries, longtime top performers in the study, are stunned by their plunge] Le Monde, September 9, 2026.
5. Bastien Scordia, “PISA 2025: le récit du ‘déclinisme français’ de retour dans la présidentielle” [PISA 2025: The narrative of “french decline” resurfaces in the presidential race], Le Monde, September 8, 2026.
6. Victoria Enzenauer, “Reaktionen auf PISA-Studie 2026: ‘Die Ergebnisse sind alarmierend’” [Reactions to the 2026 PISA Study: ‘The results are alarming’], Tagesschau, September 8, 2026.
7. Erich Aschwanden, “Neuster Pisa-Test zeigt: Ein Viertel der Schweizer Kinder leidet unter Leseschwäche” [Latest PISA test shows: One quarter of children in Switzerland struggle with reading], Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 5, 2023.
8. See footnote 4. Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal), “Le classement PISA est sorti. Ses résultats ne sont pas seulement mauvais, ils sont alarmants” [The PISA rankings have been released. The results aren’t just bad—they’re alarming] X, September 8, 2026.
9. Maxime Dubernet de Boscq, “Bruno Le Maire veut ‘avancer l’entrée en maternelle de trois ans à un an’ face à la baisse du niveau des élèves français” [Bruno Le Maire wants to “move up the start of kindergarten from age three to age one” in response to declining academic performance among French students], Le Figaro, September 8, 2026.
10. See footnote 3.
11. Ibid.
12. See footnote 6.
13. “Neuer Pisa-Schock: Wie Politik und Experten reagieren” [Another PISA shock: How politicians and experts are responding], ZDFheute, September 8, 2026.
14. Le Monde, “PISA 2025: alerte globale sur les savoirs des enfants” [PISA 2025: Global alert on children’s knowledge], editorial, Le Monde, September 8, 2026.