AI Is Destroying Our Brains

Overreliance on AI is silently stealing people’s ability to think and write for themselves. And it’s especially apparent in the youth. My younger brother (15) barely knows how to write properly because he constantly uses AI to write and edit his work. Teachers can’t tell the difference, and most students now see AI as a shortcut rather than a tool. The most frustrating part is nobody wants to admit it, and if we keep ignoring it, it’s already going to be too late.

When I first started playing around with AI tools, I thought they were fun. They made writing easier. They helped with brainstorming. They sped up annoying tasks. But there’s a difference between using AI and relying on it. And most people have crossed that line without even noticing.

You see it everywhere. People can’t write a simple email without pasting it into an AI. My classmates can’t finish a homework assignment without “just checking” what AI would say first. Even adults copy-paste entire paragraphs without actually understanding any of the information. It’s not that people became lazier overnight. It’s that AI made it easy to stop thinking.

A study by Michael Gerlich shows that higher AI tool usage is linked to lower critical thinking. Basically, the more you let AI do the thinking, the less your brain does on its own. It’s called cognitive offloading — when you hand over mental effort to a machine instead of using your own brain. It’s convenient, but it comes with a cost.

And right now, that cost is massive.

it is an Epidemic

AI is making people dumber because it replaces the effort that actually builds skill. Writing, thinking, and problem-solving are like muscles. They only grow when you use them. But when AI does the work, those muscles shrink. Instead of struggling through ideas, people outsource the entire process and lose the ability to focus, create, and think independently.

It might not seem like a big deal when you let AI write a paragraph. But what about when you need to communicate clearly in a job interview? What about when you need to form your own opinions instead of repeating something a chatbot wrote? What about when creativity becomes something people used to have?

The scary part is how quickly this shift is happening. A few years ago, writing was a skill people practiced. Now, it’s something many people almost never do. Kids are growing up tapping a button instead of forming sentences on their own. Adults who stop writing eventually lose the ability to do it well. And society keeps pretending everything is fine.

AI is a powerful tool, I use it often for research, editing help, and other stuff. But tools are supposed to help us grow, not replace our ability to think. When you let a machine do all the heavy lifting, your brain stops putting in the reps. And the more we rely on shortcuts, the weaker our minds get.

If we don’t learn how to use AI without letting it use us, we’re heading toward a future where people can no longer think for themselves.

And that’s a future nobody wants to admit is coming.