This is definitely true in SF.

Preschools definitely brag about having no toys with electronics and the posher the elementary school, the less screen time they have.

Why can't the public schools ditch the Chromebooks? They cost money, parents hate them, what's the point?

teachers love them

Really?

At best, it's a mixed bag.

The real answer is the same reason younger generations grew up learning how to use excel and word and windows, a rich company found yet another way to acclimate users to their ecosystem and bypass all those pesky regulations around tech and kids[1]. They give out dirt cheap tech to schools to get buy in, they get data, users, (mostly for life, how many non stem people do you all know who explore things like the software landscape?), in short, like everything else, money is the answer. they get marketshare. Schools get to boast about their modernity. only ones losing are us 99%'rs.

[1] https://youtu.be/N3zU7sV4bJE

This was in Spain 6 years ago. Here, educational trends in countries like the US or Northern Europe tend to be copied with ~10 years delay, so we are still in the "boasting about screens" phase, although awareness is building up among parents so I think they already boast less. I expect what you describe to become the norm in a few more years.