Technology Can Lead to Worsening Brain Function

People are growing increasingly reliant on large language model (LLM) AI as a source of information, including summarizing available data, as a study aid, to help solve academic and social problems, to receive advice about medical conditions, coding, and for help with writing documents such as resumes, letters of recommendation, marketing material, news articles, and critical essays.

Clearly, society is and will change because of the introduction of new technology. As we move forward, it is important to keep in mind not only its potential to improve our society such as by improving physical and mental health care, but also how it might affect our mental abilities adversely.

Use It or Lose It

I’ve noticed that the introduction of technology during my lifetime has been associated with a change in my mental abilities. For instance, I used to remember numbers very easily. When I was told a phone number, I was able to memorize it quickly. Now, I just type the phone number into my smartphone and associate it with a name.

Concurrently, I have had more difficulties in remembering numbers. This is likely because when I stopped asking my brain to memorize numbers, it forgot how to do it easily.

A similar change occurred with my ability to spell words. I used to be an excellent speller, but I’ve noticed over the past decade that my spelling ability has deteriorated significantly, so when I type a word sometimes I do not recognize that I misspelled it, and even if it looks wrong I find myself unsure about how to spell it correctly.

I think this deterioration has occurred for two reasons: I rely on my spell-checker to correct words, so I no longer need to make an effort to recall how to spell appropriately, and because I no longer handwrite, my brain is not as engaged in learning and remembering how to spell properly. For instance, handwriting gave me a chance to think more about what I was about to write as opposed to when I typed.

Not surprisingly, my handwriting (which was never particularly good as I wrote quickly as a physician) has also deteriorated because of disuse.

I also thought that perhaps the aging of my brain was part of the problem with remembering how to spell, but I was recently told by a number of young adult writers that they too have experienced a deterioration in their spelling ability.

Similarly, my ability to find my way while driving in a new city has deteriorated as I have become dependent on navigation apps on my smartphone.

As I was writing this post, I became aware that I have been taking “information recall” shortcuts. For instance, when I was asked to provide several historical examples of how people have interacted with the subconscious, rather than making an effort to think about it for a moment, I looked up the information on ChatGPT. It provided a list of such examples, most of which I was aware of.

I realized that if I continued to use a LLM in this fashion, in time I likely will be unable to recall information as easily, which would reduce my ability to synthesize my knowledge in new ways.

Adverse Effects on Education

Naturally, our children’s education also has been affected by new technology. To take a couple of examples, I was told last week that some second-grade teachers have elected not to teach spelling to their students, because of the availability of spell-checkers.

Unfortunately, if children don’t know how to spell, they may also miss out on learning about word roots that could help them understand words they haven’t previously encountered and build a better vocabulary.

In high school, students have been encouraged to use apps to help with their grammar. This means that they will not learn how to construct grammatical sentences on their own. It is akin to teaching someone how to play the piano by moving their fingers for them.

Unfortunately, some high school teachers have been relying on AI graders to evaluate style, logic, grammar, plagiarism, and for AI detection. This means that students will learn how to please AI, rather than to write essays that are convincing to a wise human reader.

It is worth noting that as far back as 2500 years ago, Socrates was concerned that the “technological advance” of the introduction of the written word to the masses will affect people’s memory adversely, as they would no longer need to focus on remembering what they have been taught orally.

Further, Socrates suggested that people will confuse knowledge gained from reading books with understanding that is gained by the Socratic method that involves discovering answers through consideration of questions posed by a teacher.

Socrates’ concerns appear especially poignant in our current world in which information is more easily retrieved than ever.

Takeaway

Despite the potential adverse aspects of technological advances, these have allowed us to make great progress during human history, including through building on the achievements of previous generations.

For instance, even given Socrates’ reservations, the introduction of books has allowed us to efficiently pass information from one generation to another, including knowledge about Socrates’ philosophy that was recorded in books of several of his students, most notably Plato.

Thus, as we move into a more technologically advanced future, we should consider how to best incorporate advances into our culture, while keeping in mind how to minimize potential adverse effects of such advances.