From simplified school curriculums to the rise of AI doing our thinking for us and the endless scroll of short, dopamine-fueled videos it’s hard not to wonder where all of this is taking us. With so much of life becoming automated and entertainment being reduced to quick hits of stimulation a question keeps coming up: are we actually evolving or are we devolving? Are we, as humans, becoming dumber?
Some people think we are getting dumber and they have good reasons to believe that. Schools are simplifying their curriculums and high school averages and university admission averages have been noticeably increasing in the years following COVID-19 bringing up questions regarding whether grades are being inflated or whether the curriculum is becoming easier. Standards that once pushed students to engage in school material have been lowered, making it easier to pass or even excel in courses without fully understanding the material. Nowadays, we do very little to solve or even think about our problems in general. Almost everything is automated or optimized for us. Why memorize a phone number when your contacts app can store it instantly? Why use a physical map when Google Maps can guide you turn-by-turn? Why brainstorm ideas when you can ask ChatGPT to do it in seconds? Technology has made life easier, but it has also replaced moments where we used to rely on our own thinking.
Rather than innovating or learning skills that used to be considered essential, many young people are handing off their work to artificial intelligence. According to a report by Common Sense Media, The Dawn of the AI Era: Teens, Parents, and the Adoption of Generative AI at Home and School, seven out of ten teens reported using generative AI with 53 percent of them using it for homework help. This shows how quickly habits are changing. While it might seem like a harmless shortcut, it shows a trend of avoiding mental effort in favour of fast answers.
In a world where people are constantly pressed for time, technology can be a useful tool. But right now, it is doing more harm than good in many areas. Schoolwork, like essays and research reports, is meant to develop our minds and strengthen our ability to think independently. With AI doing more of the work, students are denying their brains the stimulation they need to grow.
With all this extra time technology gives us, you’d think we’d use it for something meaningful, but instead, we’re filling it with endless content. Whether it’s watching TV, scrolling through social media, or bingeing short-form videos, we’ve traded real experiences for quick dopamine hits.
While this downtime is essential for the brain to rest it is important to note that our ability to engage with and ponder the things around us dulls over time without constant use.
AI and mindless scrolling feed into each other in a loop. Our dependence on our phones makes us more likely to offload tasks to AI and the time we save just ends up being spent on even more scrolling.
Being “smart” shouldn’t just mean getting perfect grades, especially not when a lot of tasks or homework are delegated to AI. It should be about thinking critically and most importantly, creatively. It is impossible to deny the part AI is playing in all of our lives, and it will, inevitably, be a huge part in our futures. However, even if generative AI becomes a common resource, this doesn’t mean that we as people no longer have a need to think critically anymore. Anything created by AI shouldn’t be instantaneously accepted, and we must acknowledge its biases, assess whether the information is factual, and, most importantly, think for ourselves first.
We also need to recognize that sometimes, the problem is our darn phones! The extra time that AI will give us, especially as technology only becomes more advanced in the future and our world becomes more convenient, shouldn’t be used for brain-numbing content and instead for active activity that has us interact with the world around us.
A smarter future depends on us choosing effort over ease and to choose thinking over just mindlessly scrolling and clicking.
