The Next Disconnection? What do we lose with what we gain from AI?

Growing up before social media, before the internet, and even before TVs were in every home, I've seen how much our world has changed and along the way helped secure and build parts of it. We used to turn on the nightly local and then national news to find out what was happening. If we needed to research something, we'd use the Dewey Decimal System and index cards to find a book in the library. Now, we get our news from social media, and if we have a problem, we search YouTube to watch someone fix it. I'm writing this on Black Friday, a day when we're likely to spend more money online than in physical stores and with a concentrated set of vendors.

Our whole world feels different. What is new today becomes old tomorrow, and we keep moving forward.

When technology and TVs entered every house, we began to lose touch with the outdoors. Kids used to spend their days playing outside, exploring nature, and connecting face-to-face. However, with the arrival of television and early technology, children started spending more time indoors. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2010, children aged 8 to 18 now spend an average of over 7.5 hours a day consuming entertainment media.

We often blame safety concerns for keeping kids inside, but statistics show we're actually safer now than when I was growing up running the streets in the '80s and '90s. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, violent crime rates in the United States have decreased by about 49% between 1993 and 2023. Despite this decrease, technology spreads information so fast that we hear about every bad thing that happens, making the world seem scarier than it is. This phenomenon is known as the "mean world syndrome," where constant exposure to negative news leads people to perceive the world as more dangerous than it actually is

When social media came along, it was supposed to bring us closer together. But instead, many people started feeling more lonely, anxious, and even depressed. Studies have shown that since social media became popular, feelings of social isolation have increased. This was the another disconnection—we lost some real-life connections because we were too busy scrolling through feeds.

Now, with artificial intelligence becoming a bigger part of our lives, I'm noticing something new. People are starting to rely on AI to do things we used to do ourselves. They record a speech or a lesson and have an AI summarize it for them. Some even make fun of those who still take notes by hand. But here's where I get concerned.

We know that writing things down helps us remember and understand better. Scientists have found that students who take notes by hand tend to grasp the material more deeply than those who don't. When we write, we're not just copying words—we're thinking about the information and making it our own.

Learning isn't always easy or fun. It involves making mistakes and working through challenges. This struggle helps our brains grow stronger. Researchers call this "desirable difficulties" where the hard parts of learning make us better in the long run.

None of this is to say that AI is bad. On the contrary, it has great potential for helping us learn when we use it wisely. The key is finding a balance—like everything in life—between using AI's strengths and engaging in active learning.

Teachers and ourselves as students should think about using AI as a tool that adds to, rather than replaces, the learning process. For example, AI can give immediate feedback on practice problems, helping learners adjust their understanding in real time. But the first attempt to solve the problem should come from ourselves.

I wonder what will happen if we rely too much on AI. We might be heading toward the next disconnection. This time, it's not just about losing touch with other people, but losing touch with our own ability to learn and grow. If we skip the hard parts, we might not develop the skills we need to think critically and solve problems on our own.

Just like how muscles get weaker if we don't use them, our brains can too. A study showed that people who always use GPS to get around have less activity in the part of the brain that handles memory and navigation. If we let AI do our thinking for us, we might not keep our minds as sharp.

It's kind of ironic that I'm using AI to help write this article. But maybe that's the point—we need to find a balance. AI can be a great tool if we use it the right way. We should make sure we're still actively engaging with what we're learning and not letting technology do all the work for us.

We've already seen how technology can disconnect us from each other. Let's be careful that it doesn't disconnect us from ourselves and our ability to learn and grow. By staying involved and not shying away from the hard parts, we can make the most of what AI has to offer without losing what's important.