The Franklin Institute
Science museum in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| I Didn’t Bring My Son to a Museum to Look at Screens | Seth Purcell | subject | A childhood favourite revisited and found full of touchscreens. |
I Didn’t Bring My Son to a Museum to Look at Screens — Seth Purcell (2025)
Source: I Didn’t Bring My Son to a Museum to Look at Screens · Original · Readwise highlight
She led our son gently but firmly away to the glorious four-story Foucault pendulum which hangs in a stairwell.
- Role: subject
- In the article: The museum was one of the writer’s two favourite places as a child in the 1980s. Visiting with his six-year-old, he finds the main halls and the Wondrous Space exhibit dominated by touchscreens, with the real hands-on exhibits tucked away in Sir Isaac’s Loft and the Air Show room. He asks for the screens to go, while allowing that the Franklin Memorial rotunda is gorgeous.
- Why it matters: The museum is the case for his argument that children learn from physical things, not digital simulations of them.