Technology has advanced significantly in the last decade. With just a quick Google search, AI is easy to access, and it can answer almost any question. But is AI really as good as it seems? Students often use it to get quick and easy answers for their homework – but what they may not realize is that the reliance on AI can actually be detrimental to their growing minds.
Adolescents’ minds can be drastically affected by the use of AI. The brain stops developing by the mid 20s, so if it absorbs things that could potentially be bad for it before that time, it may result in long-lasting problems. These problems include decreases in mental engagement, a diminished attention span, an inability to focus, forgetting things more often, and a decrease in cognitive abilities like problem solving and creative thinking. People who form emotional bonds with the AI they interact with have also shown a notable decrease in human-on-human interaction.
“I think that AI has negatively affected our schools because it’s inauthentic, and kids aren’t using their own brains to write things – they are using AI’s brain since they choose to rely on it instead of doing the work themselves,” said junior Farah Noman.
Junior Fatima Hamoud also shared her opinion on the topic. “I feel it can actually help give a clearer understanding about a topic someone is struggling with, so it shouldn’t be seen as the bad thing everyone makes it out to be,” she said. “People still shouldn’t get direct answers from it, though.”
In the United States, statistics show that an astonishing 44% of teenagers are more likely to use AI in 2023.It seems like not too long ago almost nobody knew what AI was, and now a huge chunk of students are using it. Additionally, there are many students who want to break away from their dependence on AI, but feel that they cannot out of fear that they will get a lower grade if they do the work themselves.
Is there any hope for students who want to depart from the seemingly never-ending grip of AI? Absolutely! If someone is serious about stopping their AI usage, the first step is realizing that AI is just simply overrated. Maybe in the beginning it went undetected in writing and sounded like a college professor wrote it, but the writing lacks so much human emotion that it becomes obvious whether someone used it or not. A few more ways one can stop their usage is by having confidence in your own abilities to do your own work, along with understanding that you will make mistakes. Each mistake is a new opportunity to grow through feedback.
So, what do you think? Are we as a civilization making our students’ futures go downhill from AI, or is there hope for a change?
