It’s official: ChatGPT is hurting students. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs, which many students use to craft essays in high school and college, are making students lazier, unoriginal and “soulless,” according to a new report from MIT. And the most concerning part? It seems like teens just don’t care.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that those who were asked to use Chat GPT to write SAT essays had lower brain engagement than those who wrote them using no tools and those who wrote them using the help of a search engine like Google. The same Chat GPT group also “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels,” per Dazed.
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MIT researchers used brain scans over a series of months, which showed that the students who used ChatGPT got lazier with each essay. The essay content was also similar to others who used ChatGPT and “lacked original thought, using the same expression and ideas.” When English teachers reviewed the essays, they said the ChatGPT group felt “soulless.”
Images from the brain-only group (not using ChatGPT or search engines) had the highest neural connectivity, especially in the areas of the brain associated with creativity, memory, and semantic processing. Even the group who used Google had high levels of satisfaction with their work and active brain function.
So, how can parents help? It’s unrealistic to assume that teens and college students (and even adults!) will stop using AI to help them with their work. But maybe the answer lies in altering the way we teach kids to use it. For example, in the study, researchers found that if the brain-only group used ChatGPT afterward to help rewrite their essay, they had an increase in brain connectivity and did well at the task, showing that there could be some use for this tool to enhance learning.
What Do Real Teens Think About AI?
Recently, SheKnows surveyed 25 teens ages 14-20 and found that 84 percent of them used AI to help with their homework. Forty percent reported using AI for school-related purposed between two and five times a week. Despite the prevalence of AI, 88 percent of teens agreed that using AI is cheating when it comes to in-person quizzes or exams. However, only 12 percent considered it cheating to use AI during homework.
A 16-year-old teen named Clive, who is part of our SheKnows Teen Council, previously shared, “I think that teachers don’t really realize how much you can use AI for yet so I get a lot of essays and work to do at home that you can easily use AI on and I think they’re going to realize in the next couple of years that like how much you can use it and how hard it is to detect and I think that’s when there will be a shift toward more standardized testing in class or things they can moderate and make sure you’re not cheating on.”
Sophie, 17, sees it a lot in her school. “I see almost in every one of my classes, most people like, if we’re working on an assignment, will just copy and paste it in ChatGPT. So I feel like I definitely use it a lot less than my classmates around me, just because I feel like it’s become so normalized in my school, which is not good.”
For students who value their work, they avoid using ChatGPT for anything artistic like writing. “I don’t want to use it when it comes to writing; I value my writing and want it to come from my head and my heart,” 17-year-old Juliet told us. “For physics and math and that sort of thing I don’t mind using it for that to explain stuff to me, but I don’t want to use it if it’s for a writing assignment.”
What Can Parents Do?
The American Psychological Association (APA) suggests parents teach your kids and teens how to use AI to enhance their learning rather than replace it. “Your goal is to help students use AI to enhance their learning while still developing their own analytical abilities,” the organization stated on their website. “However, it’s crucial that students don’t become overly dependent on AI, which could impede development of their own knowledge and skills.”
Keep open communication with your teens about AI, encouraging them to question AI-generated content (which isn’t always accurate), talking about AI’s limitations, and helping them develop their own knowledge and skills.
“We have an opportunity to get AI right for young people in ways we didn’t with social media,” APA Chief of Psychology Mitch Prinstein, Ph.D., said in a statement. “By understanding both the benefits and risks now, parents can help their teens navigate this technology safely while maximizing its positive potential.”
Before you go, check out these celebrities who have shared their technology rules for their kids.
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