Young People Who Can’t Think

Allysia Finley:

Could increasing use of computers in K-12 schools be one reason that standardized test scores have been falling since 2017 despite soaring education spending? It’s worth studying.

Most students in college and many in high school take notes on laptops or tablets, when they take them at all. AI tools that summarize lectures and meetings may soon render note-taking obsolete. Students will likely retain less information as a result.

Why commit information to memory when ChatGPT can provide answers at your fingertips? For one thing, the brain can’t draw connections between ideas that aren’t there. Nothing comes from nothing. Creativity also doesn’t happen unless the brain is engaged. Scientists have found that “Aha!” moments occur spontaneously with a sudden burst of high-frequency electrical activity when the brain connects seemingly unrelated concepts.

College and high-school students increasingly also use large language models like ChatGPT to write papers, perform mathematical proofs, and create computer code. That means they don’t learn how to think through, express or defend ideas. Nor how to construct arguments and anticipate the rebuttals. They offload these cognitive challenges to AI.


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