Outsourcing Your Mind? How ChatGPT Shapes the Way We Think and Write. (bad news?)

Introduction

a news story went viral about an MIT study that said GPT chat made you slower. What about this? Let's take a good look at this matter.

Note: All sources for this article are listed at the end.

a kid reading a book

The study found that using GPT chat for writing tasks led to a decrease in cognitive effort and engagement. Participants who relied on the AI assistant showed less brain activity and were less creative in their writing compared to those who wrote without assistance. This raises important questions about the long-term effects of using AI tools on our cognitive abilities and writing skills.

The MIT Study: Methodology & Results

Well, it turns out that a few days ago a team from MIT published a study that went viral. In it, scientists showed an experiment with 54 people between 18 and 39 years old. Yes, the study group was that small.

All of these people were divided into three groups to write SAT-style essays, which are the typical college entrance exam essays in the United States.

One study group used only their head, another group used Google, and the third used GPT Chat. As they wrote, the scientists monitored the participants' brain activity using electroencephalogram headsets with 32 sensors.

The result was that those who used GPT chat showed the least brain activity and were the worst at typing. And it wasn't just a one-time occurrence; throughout the study, those in the GPT chat group were putting in less and less effort.

By the third trial, many were simply copying and pasting what the AI was giving them. It was as if his brain was saying, "Today is my day off." The researchers not only saw less electrical activity in the brain, but also evaluated the trials with teachers. What the teachers found was something they had come to expect: repetitive phrases, zero creativity, and soulless texts. That is, the chatGPT turned off their brains, but also stole their personal style or so they described it. In contrast, the group that wrote without assistance showed the greatest brain connectivity in alpha and delta waves, which are related to memory, creativity, and processing complex ideas.

They also said they felt more satisfied with what they wrote, because of course, it's easier to feel proud of something you did, right? But what about those who used Google? Hm, weren't they cheating?

Well, good question. The group that used Google also showed high brain activity and expressed satisfaction with their tests. But according to researchers, the difference is that when we search for information on Google, our brains are still forced to think, select, and process.

On the other hand, when you talk to a chatbot that already sets everything up for you, you just consume, you don't analyze or doubt, you don't remember. And here comes the most interesting part of the study.

Memory & Retention: The Twist in the Experiment

After all that, the scientists asked all participants to rewrite one of their previous essays, but with a twist—a change in the rules of the experiment that forces participants to approach the task from a different perspective.

The result was that the group that previously used GPT Chat could now no longer use it. Why? Because they didn't remember almost anything of what they had written, they literally hadn't integrated it into their memory.

In contrast, the group that wrote without assistance and could now use artificial intelligence did better than ever. But this means isn't true, it's just one study, one study alone isn't enough to prove something.

⚠️ Concerns & Context

Natalia Kos'myna Furthermore, lead author Natalía Kos'myna decided to publish the data before they underwent peer review because, in her opinion, the risk is urgent. She says she's afraid that in 6 to 8 months, someone in the government will say, "Let's make a kindergarten with GPT chat, which would be terrible for developing brains."

Yes, those are her statements. Kos'myna works at the MIT Media Lab, where scientists there had already seen another worrying trend this year. The more time people spend talking to GPT Chat, the lonelier they feel. However, she says she focused on how this affects student learning, because education is where this technology is most rapidly becoming embedded. Sounds worrying, doesn't it? But the matter is much more complex.

Technology: Tool or Threat?

GPT chat is neither your enemy nor your friend, so don't try to hug it. A lot of confidence. GPT chat is a tool, and like any tool, it all depends on how you use it. Let's go into more detail on this matter. Every time a new technology appears that seems revolutionary, alarm bells ring.

a person in the darkness

And it's not a new thing, it comes from the time of the apostles, right? Even further. There were alarms even with the invention of writing.

Even if you don't believe it. In the 4th century BC, Plato wrote in his work Phaedrus that Socrates was opposed to writing. According to him, those who wrote would no longer strive to remember anything, that they would depend on the text and not on thought, that they would become forgetful.

Today we know that writing not only did not kill memory, but allowed knowledge to travel, grow, and become cumulative.

Writing gave us history, science, literature, philosophy, in other words, it gave us civilization. We stopped memorizing everything as before, but we started thinking in new ways, deeper, more complex, and more collaborative ways. That's where the printing press came from.

When we think of technologies that changed the course of humanity, the printing press also occupies a central place.

The Printing Press: A Historical Parallel

printing image Before its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century, books were copied by hand by monks and scribes one by one. This process could take months, even years, and made books rare and very expensive objects, accessible to very few.

Knowledge was confined to monasteries, universities and courts. If knowledge was power, that power was highly concentrated. The printing press broke with all that.

Suddenly, reproducing a book ceased to be a craft and became an unrepeatable mechanical operation. Within a short time, thousands of copies of texts that had previously been restricted to an elite group began to circulate. Ideas traveled further, faster, and with greater impact. But what seemed to be a great invention was not celebrated by everyone.

Of course, in many quarters, especially among religious, academic, and political authorities, there was a deep concern about what would happen if anyone could read and if ideas circulated unchecked. And if unprepared people had access to dangerous or misinterpreted knowledge, then it wasn't just a matter of intellectual elitism.

There was a genuine and partly justified fear of losing the monopoly on truth, of knowledge becoming chaotic and disordered.

One of the most cited critics in this context was the Swiss humanist Conrad Gesner, who in the 15th century warned of the risks of an excess of books.

Asim himself saw it as a threat to the mind and referred to it as an avalanche of information that could disorient, saturate, or even damage the ability to discern.

The concern was not only that there was too much to read, but that the average reader did not have the tools to separate the valuable from the trivial or the true from the false. And it was no minor concern, of course.

The printing press not only facilitated the dissemination of classical, scientific, or educational texts, but also multiplied political pamphlets, criticisms of the Church, and unauthorized translations of the Bible.

So, it was in many ways a subversive technology for its time. It allowed ideas contrary to dominant thinking to reach the hands of those who would never have had access to them before.

the Gutenberg press

The Protestant Reformation is a good example. Luther's 95 Theses were printed and widely distributed within weeks, something that would have been easily forgotten or suppressed without the printing press.

So, as you can imagine, in that sense, the authorities' fears were not unfounded.

The intellectual and religious order of the Western world was being threatened and was changing. But what happened next was very revealing.

Far from collapsing under information overload, European society began to adapt.

New teaching models emerged. Literacy became a priority in many regions. Indexes of recommended books, public libraries, and reading manuals appeared.

the spread of literacy and public libraries

Can you imagine being present in those moments? The irony is that many of the feared things did happen, but the net effect was largely positive. The explosion of ideas fueled the Renaissance, modern science, the expansion of philosophy, but most importantly, it fueled the democratization of knowledge. Therefore, when we talk about the fear of information overload as a threat to thought, it is worth recalling a bit of history. The printing press didn't bring immediate clarity, of course; it brought a lot of noise, a lot of conflict, and also confusion, but the important thing is that it forced the development of new criteria and methods. The written culture we take for granted today—the ability to research, compare sources, and construct arguments—was built in response to this new information landscape. It didn't make us less wise, it made us more responsible for our knowledge, it forced us to take a more active role in what we read. He did not come to simplify the truth, but to make it more complex. And in that complexity a type of reader was born, one who was more autonomous, one who was more demanding and more critical. That is the true legacy of the printing press. Not only did it multiply books, it multiplied ways of thinking, and it didn't destroy the truth; it amplified it and also amplified the need for critical literacy. What's that? You might say, well, that's something that not only refers to knowing how to read and write, but something much more important:

Critical Literacy: The New Essential Skill

critical literacy really understanding what you're reading, questioning it, and not swallowing everything as it comes. It's the skill we've developed to analyze a text with our minds, to identify the intention of the person who wrote it, or to ask ourselves why that thing was said and not something else, or why. Today, more than ever, we are surrounded by information everywhere: social media, videos, even things generated by artificial intelligence. But much of that information is biased, has hidden agendas, and is full of errors.

Critical literacy is what allows you to avoid falling into these traps. It's when you read something and not only understand the words, but you stop to think, is this a fact or an opinion? Where does it come from? Is there evidence? What is being left out? Who benefits from me believing this? That's what always applies to Twitter, yes or no? It's that ability to cross-reference sources, to make well-founded suspicions, and to form your own opinion based on evidence, rather than just repeating what you've read.

If we don't make that effort, we become very easily manipulated. Without critical literacy, anyone with a screen and a compelling narrative can make you believe anything they want. With this tool, you not only understand the world, but you also learn to navigate it independently. And that today is as essential as knowing how to read. But that's not critical thinking, it seems, is it? But critical thinking is a broader skill. It involves analyzing, questioning, reasoning, and evaluating information in a logical and reflective manner.

The point is that critical thinking applies to any situation, from a conversation to a math problem, or from a philosophical idea to a news report.

Critical literacy, on the other hand, is an application of critical thinking to the act of reading, viewing, or consuming information. It's like critical thinking applied specifically to texts and networks, etc. That is, it involves knowing how to read the fine print between the lines. So, you could say that critical literacy uses critical thinking, but it focuses on how we process what we read, hear, or see. It's as if critical thinking were the muscle and critical literacy a specific technique for using it well in the information world. With this he contributed greatly to the printing press. Another advance that weapons generated was the calculator.

Calculators, Google, and the Next Step

one of the first calculators If you're over 40, you'll remember that in the 1970s and 1980s, when calculators first appeared in classrooms, many teachers thought it was the end of mathematics, that students would no longer learn to calculate, that their brains would weaken, in other words, that calculators would make us dumber—not even dumber, just dumber. What does that mean? And it wasn't just any old thing. There were long debates about them, and they were even banned for years in some exams. But once properly integrated into our lives, calculators allowed students to spend less time on repetitive operations and more time solving complex problems. In reality, they didn't kill logical reasoning, they freed it from mechanical tasks, and today no one disputes that they are a useful tool for teaching better. Well, yes, there are some who are still arguing about that. Pass this article to him (becouse obviously is man). Something more recent happened in 2008 with the boom in internet search engines.

Back then, writer Nicolas Carl published an article in The Atlantic titled, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" In it, he argued that by having all the information at the click of a button, we were ceasing to think deeply, that we were no longer retaining information, that we were skimming, that our brains were becoming superficial. His argument sounded reasonable and had some truth to it, since the internet has changed the way we read and search. But the internet also opened the door to new forms of learning. And as you've noticed, today it's no longer important to memorize data; it's important to know how to find it, evaluate it, and then connect it. What we are doing now is developing better strategic thinking. At school I still studied by memorizing important dates, supposedly. What good did it do me? I remember one or two.

Before, we used to memorize a lot of things that are irrelevant in our daily lives, and now we're faced with the GPT chat alarm. It is said that it can kill critical thinking, that students will stop writing, that workers will become lazy, that the human mind will lose its edge. And that's basically what this MIT study is focusing on. GPT Chat can be used as a bad tool.

Yes, it may prompt you to mindlessly copy and paste, but it can also be a starting point for writing better, exploring new ideas, comparing arguments, and even thinking critically. It all depends on how we use it. The MIT study suggests that using GPT chat is associated with less brain activity during certain tasks, but that doesn't prove that critical thinking is at risk.

First, as I said at the beginning, the study was small and has not been peer-reviewed. Second, it is not clear whether the tasks they measured reflect the complexity of critical thinking in real life. And third, because the use of tools always implies a redistribution of cognitive effort. Furthermore, measuring only brain waves without considering context is like judging a conversation only by the volume of the voice. all content is lost. And there's also a trap in the narrative of saying that GPT chat is dangerous. It's about assuming that what the brain does in a laboratory setting represents what the brain will do in real life. Or thinking that using a tool always means using it wrong. So the reality is that this issue has many nuances. The MIT study, as I said at the beginning, measured brain activity concephalograms and noticed less activation when they used GPT chat. But less activity does not mean intelligence. It may mean that the brain is simply being more efficient at delegating certain tasks, like when we use GPS instead of memorizing an entire city. Today, knowing when to think for yourself and when to use outside help is part of what it means to think well. You may have noticed, but when used judiciously, GPT chat doesn't make you any dumber. On the contrary, it can be the starting point for better thinking. As I said a little while ago, it can offer you other ideas and perspectives, not for you to accept without question, but for you to confront, compare, and refine. For example,

Practical Examples: Using AI as a Tool

accient tool if you're a student using GPT chat to generate a work outline, you'll then consult sources, review data, and analyze inconsistencies. The final result you will obtain could be richer because there was a whole process of hypothesis, questioning, and verification.

And that's the heart of critical thinking. And it doesn't just apply to GPT chat. Today we use various types of technologies on a daily basis, whether to remember, to organize ourselves, or to wake up. That doesn't make us lazier, it allows us to focus on what our brain now considers most important.

Technology gives you the free time you might need to lie on your back in bed and ask yourself questions that keep you awake at night. GPT chat does something similar. It helps you filter and start with a foundation upon which you can build original thinking if you so desire. Another example. Imagine a doctor who must prepare a presentation for colleagues about the latest treatments for a rare disease. Instead of spending hours searching through articles one by one, use GPT Chat to get an initial summary of recent studies with references included. This gives you a quick overview and allows you to identify which lines of research are worth further investigation. You will then go to the original sources to analyze the results, compare the approaches, and draw your own conclusions. In other words, artificial intelligence has not replaced your medical judgment or professional judgment; it has simply cut off the path to in-depth analysis. The real value still lies in what he does with the information.

Risks & Responsible Use

an image showing a balance between thing of innovation and addictions So there are no risks? Everything is rosy, of course not.

It depends on how it is used.

The real risk is in using these tools without awareness. The problem isn't GPT chat, but how it should be integrated into education and work. If students are allowed to use it without guidance, without encouraging analysis or verification, of course there will be some intellectual problem there.

But that is solved with a structure based on planning, not prohibition.

So instead of closing the door to artificial intelligence, which is already here and isn't going away, we need to teach it how to use it well. We must teach students to question what they create, to learn to detect errors, to use it as a starting point, not as a final product. If you analyze it carefully, this could not only improve critical thinking, but it can also reinforce it with new skills. Thanks to this time savings, your brain can now focus on evaluating sources, identifying biases, and thinking strategically. As you may have noticed, viewing Chat GPT as a threat to our thinking is looking at it through too narrow a lens. We've seen that history is full of moments when a new tool was said to be damaging to our intelligence, and each time the opposite happened. We expanded it.

Be more afraid of a third world war. But yes, every technological advancement has come with its tough questions, right? What do we do now? How much do we have to delegate? How much do we have to trust? How should we educate ourselves to use this tool well without it replacing the necessary mental effort? But with every new technology we have had to learn new skills.

Writing forced us to learn to read. The printing press forced us to distinguish reliable sources. Google pushed us to filter information. GPT chat is challenging us to integrate human thought and machine generation. And that's the key point. GPT chat doesn't think for you, it gives you options, it gives you ideas, it gives you the paths. Thinking happens when you choose what to do with it. If you accept everything without processing it, then you are not thinking. But if you use this tool as a discussion partner, as an initial spark that can give you an idea, as a way to gain different perspectives, then you're doing the same thing the great thinkers of their time did with those discoveries: adapting them to think more and better. But you, are you using artificial intelligence to save yourself the effort? To elevate your thinking or just to make Gibly-style drawings?

Congratulations.

If you made it this far, congratulations. you're on top 97% people with focus problems.

Thats a topic for other article...

Frank.