Author: Mia Yu

“Technology is both a tool for helping humans and destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we’re compelled to face.” This quote was written by Frank Herbert, an American author who wrote the renowned novel, Dune. In his book, The Maker of Dune, he mentions the blessing and curse that technology presents to society today. In recent times, this quote has proven correct with the arrival of a new AI company making storms in the technological community: ChatGPT. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot recently created and put out on the internet by Open AI. Many students use ChatGPT to do their homework, and there have been rising concerns regarding the students’ uses of AI and how this affects their learning. And not only students, but even adults are using ChatGPT to slack off. Through this comes the concern that with the expansion of technology, we learn less, causing future generations to become less and less intelligent, and will cause the human race to intellectually regress at a dangerous rate. 

The introduction of ChatGPT emboldens a new era of technological advancement in the field of artificial intelligence. However, it has been shown in history that the expansion of technology is often a double-edged sword. The Industrial Revolution is an example of that. During the Industrial Revolution, many inventions were created and innovation was the standard. However, during this time period, horrible living conditions, poor nutrition, employment of children, and dangerous working conditions were common. According to a 1991 article from the Los Angelos Times, “35,000 U.S. workers were killed on the job in 1914”. Additionally, the Industrial Revolution caused immense air pollution, causing what was called the “Great Smog”, when lethal smog covered London for five days. Some may argue that these negative side effects that came with the Industrial Revolution may just be an uncommon occurrence. But, it has been proven time after time that technological advancement brings about not only benefits but harm to our society. Think of the mass-energy equivalence formula, which created the atomic bomb, the gas chamber, which was used to kill people, and agent orange, a cancer-causing herbicide. Every single one of these inventions inadvertently caused harm to mankind. The expansion of technological advancements through ChatGPT is sure to be no exception. Its effects on society can already be seen, through the ways it has been exploited, and how these exploitations will impact our society.

The usage and reliance on online resources to complete homework and essays is not even an uncommon occurrence. For years, there have been multiple Internet sites, such as Chegg, Quizlet, and Brainly, that provided students with the answers to their homework. With the appearance of ChatGPT and the expansion of AI, these resources that help students cheat their way out of homework will inevitably expand. 

I believe that with the technology we have now, the Internet, and the sites on the Internet, as well as upcoming advancements in the technological field, we, as humans, will be unable to resist the temptations of our laziness and will succumb to the desire to rely on the Internet to do everything for us. It has already been shown that using online resources for homework causes a decrease in learning, and the fast-paced nature of the Internet causes a lower attention span. Additionally, with these online sites doing everything for us, we won’t need to think, and our cognitive skills will disappear, rendering us completely witless.

Something that I have noticed among friends, classmates, and peers is the fact that using online resources to do their homework often causes a lowering in test scores. This trend that I have noticed has also been found in multiple research articles. According to the research paper: Fewer students are benefiting from doing their homework: an eleven-year study, conducted by Arnold L. Glass and Mengxue Kang, “During the most recent two years of the study, when students were asked how they did their homework, students who benefitted from homework reported generating their own answers and students who reported copying the answers from another source did not benefit from homework.” In another research study conducted by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, along with Jorgianne Robinson and Erika Patall, they found that “both within and across design types, there was generally consistent evidence for a positive influence of homework on achievement.” And again, in another research article, When is Homework Worth the Time?: Evaluating the Association Between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math, written by Adam V. Maltese, Robert H. Tai, and XiTao Fan, they found “a consistently positive significant relationship between homework and performance on standardized exams.” Time after time, sources found that homework has a direct correlation with test grades; those who complete their homework are seen to be more likely to grasp the concept and develop a thorough understanding of the curriculum, which in turn helps them do well on tests, and those who do not complete their homework do not understand the curriculum and do poorly on tests. The usage of online sources to do homework has a distinct effect on students’ grades and their knowledge in general. 

Not only is online resources providing homework and test answers detrimental to students’ studies, the fast-paced nature of the Internet itself is harmful. I have recently noticed a decrease in concentration that I feel when reading. When I try to read through a long piece of text, I struggle to focus and usually skim through it. My attention span seems to be lower and I cannot concentrate on the text. And when trying to recall when these symptoms first started appearing, I realize that only with the increase in my usage of the Internet did this lack of focus start to appear. Nicholas Carr’s article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, describes a similar condition he and his peers face. He writes, “I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.” Through this, it is evident that the increase in our usage of the Internet is detrimental to our concentration and the way we read.

Now, these are but a small portion of the big picture. The reality is, with us constantly relying on and using technology, our cognitive function lowers and our attention span decreases, and eventually we become, to put it plainly, dumber. The arising new intelligent technology serves as an easy way out of learning and innovation. When relying on the Internet to do our work for us, we effectively stop using our brains. Use it or lose it: How neurogenesis keeps the brain fit for learning, a research article published by T.J Shors, LM Anderson, D.M. Curlik II, and SM Nokia, finds that “If learning does occur, the new cells become incorporated into brain circuits used for learning. In turn, some processes of learning and mental activity appear to depend on their presence.” This means that the function of our brains is dependent on brain circuits that rely on learning. Without learning, our brains will stop functioning as quickly and we will become ‘unintelligent’. Without our ‘intelligence’, our identities as humans are stripped away and we simply become animals. Our ability of cognitive thinking, which separates us from animals, will be gone if we do not practice and grow our minds. Through decades and generations of lessened uses of our brains, the human race will intellectually regress.

While some may argue that the Internet is a tool to help us learn with unlimited access to whatever information we need, the fact remains that the Internet is damaging to our brains. It not only decreases our attention span, it also provides us with websites like ChatGPT that give us a tempting opportunity to laze around and not do any work. As Harriot Beecher Stowe once stated, “Human nature is above all things lazy.” Much more people would rather exploit technology out of laziness than face the gruel and challenge of actually learning and improving by using the Internet to learn.

The continuation of exploiting technology to get out of utilizing our cognitive thinking will undoubtedly negatively impact our society’s intelligence as a whole. As we slack off and stop striving to learn and grow, we will become unintelligent. If we continue to rely on and use the Internet, the negative effects on our intelligence are sure to appear. Unless we strive to learn and expand our knowledge, despite the temptations of the Internet, the human race will soon become stupid.

Works Cited

Carr, N. (2022, February 11). Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ 

Cleeland, N. (1999, November 21). Shutting down the ‘death calendar’. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-21-fi-36279-story.html 

Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research, 1987–2003. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 1–62. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543076001001

Glass, A. L., & Kang, M. (2020, August 12). Fewer students are benefiting from doing their homework: An eleven-year study. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01443410.2020.1802645?journalCode=cedp20 

Maltese, A., Tai, R. H., & Fan, X. (2012, January). When is homework worth the time?: Evaluating the association between … ResearchGate. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236805115_When_is_Homework_Worth_the_Time_Evaluating_the_Association_Between_Homework_and_Achievement_in_High_School_Science_and_Math 

Shors TJ, Anderson ML, Curlik DM 2nd, Nokia MS. Use it or lose it: how neurogenesis keeps the brain fit for learning. Behav Brain Res. 2012 Feb 14;227(2):450-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2011.04.023. Epub 2011 Apr 22. PMID: 21536076; PMCID: PMC3191246.