Is ChatGPT Weakening Critical Thinking?

Four months of research from MIT suggests it might be—at least when we rely on it the wrong way.

In the study, 83% of people who used ChatGPT to write essays couldn’t remember what they’d

written just minutes later. Compare that to only 11% who forgot when they used Google—or

their own thinking. Brain scans revealed even more. Neural connectivity dropped from 79

to 42, a collapse of nearly 47%. Across every measured frequency band,

ChatGPT users showed the lowest brain engagement and consistently underperformed at neural,

linguistic, and behavioral levels. Teachers noticed it too. They described the

essays as soulless: flawless grammar, familiar structure, but lacking depth, nuance,