Does Using AI Lower Your Brain’s Ability?
It’s tempting to think that gen AI is like screentime, or TVs, or smartphones for prior generations - but we are increasingly seeing that it is not. While it is important to stay grounded in evidence and avoid knee-jerk reactions, parents do need to proactively increase their understanding of their values, preconceptions and skills in this area before their children start picking AI behavior up at random. This article will tell you if AI Lower Your Brain’s Ability and how we, as a parent should be aware of.
A week and a half ago, researchers from MIT, Wellesley and MassArt dropped a new study on how using AI affects students’ essay writing called “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task”. If you’re an educator you’ve likely already known about this - if you’re a parent, maybe not. We break down in this short article what parents (and teachers) need to know, explained simply and with key statistics.
What was the study about?
In this study, 54 student participants were divided into three groups: one wrote essays using only their own brains (called “brain-only”), one used a search engine (called “search engine group”), and one used an AI assistant (called “LLM group”). Later, some participants switched groups to see how changing tools affected them. All 54 students were between 18 to 39 years old and were undergraduate, graduate or post-doc students enrolled or working at MIT, Wellesley, Harvard, Tufts, and Northeastern.
Using AI more is correlated with less mental effort and focus
The participants’ brain activity was measured using EEG (a way to see how hard the brain is working). The brain-only group (the one using only their own brains without any AI use) showed the strongest and most widespread brain activity, meaning they were thinking and engaging deeply. The group using AI showed the weakest brain activity, suggesting less mental effort.
More worrisomely, over four months, the group using AI assistants consistently performed worse in terms of brain engagement, essay quality, and ability to remember or quote from their own work, compared to those who wrote without AI help. Students who used AI felt less ownership over their essays and had trouble recalling what they had written, even just minutes later. In contrast, those who wrote without AI felt more connected to their work and could quote from it more easily. Cognitive engagement - or how much your brain is working and focusing on a task - went down for all the students who used AI.
The final section of the study asked students who hadn’t used AI at all in their essays thus far to now start using it. When those students switched to using AI, their brains showed more activity than those who had always used AI, but still less than those who never used AI at all, implying that the more you use AI regularly, the harder it is to engage mentally in the task you’re doing.
Why Teaching Your Kid Digital Wellbeing and AI Proactively Matters Now More Than Ever
The release of this paper (and similar others over the last year) further underlines what many of us have been suspecting: that while AI can be a helpful tool, relying on it too much weakens important learning skills and reduces how much a learner feels connected to their own work.
While it’s important to note that this paper was using slightly older learners than the K-12 school children, AI is already a normal part of education and daily life for our Gen Z and Gen A learners, so it’s critical for parents and teachers to stay up-to-date with credible research like this. Ongoing studies help us understand both the benefits and risks, so we can make smart choices about how and when our children use AI.
Remember to avoid the catchy headlines (like “Robots will replace us all; our kids won’t have jobs”) and choose credible research, articles or knowledge specialists who can provide evidence (like this study) about child development and emerging technology. Role modeling this critical thinking for your family will help you start a meaningful conversation with your children and school when the time is right.
Don’t wait until your child is already talking to Siri or getting their own phone to think about digital wellbeing. Just as you would teach your child to cross the street safely before letting them walk alone, you should start conversations about healthy technology use and responsible AI habits early—before they are fully immersed in digital tools.
References / Sources
Kosmyna, Nataliya & Hauptmann, Eugene & Yuan, Ye & Situ, Jessica & Liao, Xian-Hao & Beresnitzky, Ashly & Braunstein, Iris & Maes, Pattie. (2025). Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. 10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872.
