After falling out of the habit of weight training, it feels good to pick up my weights and challenge my body.
At a time of increasing uncertainty, this simple practice helps me to feel strong and powerful. As Professor BJ Fogg says:
“When you feel physically stronger, this feeling ripples out into many other areas of life.”
My muscles were growing, but one part of my body was slowly getting weaker.
What part am I talking about?
I’m talking about my brain, specifically my ability for deep learning and thinking.
A couple of months ago, it dawned on me that my brain had seen better days. When I confided in my husband about this, he said he felt the same way about his brain.
But it wasn’t always like this.
When I was a university student, it was normal to spend several hours each day reading and mind mapping.
Most days, I’d feel confused about a new concept or how one idea was connected to another. I didn’t know the answers to a lot of questions.
But I sat with the discomfort, knowing it was a normal part of the learning process.
By the time I submitted my PhD thesis (nearly 10 years ago), I was at the peak of my mental fitness. My brain was sharp and strong.
These days, it feels much harder to think and learn. Too often, I notice that I’m impatient like a toddler. I want the answers quickly.
While learning has never been easy for me, deep learning felt easier 10 years ago because:
Contrast those conditions to the modern environment most of us find ourselves in today:
If you wanted to create a recipe to diminish a person’s ability to learn and think deeply, those would be the perfect ingredients.
Students today find themselves in an environment that actively works against deep learning. In this environment, we are pushed to learn in superficial ways, if at all.
A recent Guardian piece explored how AI is having a negative impact on students’ ability to study. Survey research conducted in the UK found a staggering 62 per cent of students agreed with the statement, “It’s too easy to find the answers without doing the work myself.”
Only 2 per cent of students said they did not use AI.
As humans, we tend to live for the short-term. Thinking about the future and long-term planning are not strengths for most of us, especially teenagers whose brains are still developing.
Now, imagine you’re a young person who finds high school incredibly boring. You’re a little insecure, and you lack confidence in your ability to learn. To make matters worse, you can’t see the point of your subjects and how what you’re learning is going to help you later in life.
Suddenly, a free tool appears in your world that can help you avoid the pain, suffering, and potential humiliation of failure with your school subjects. It can also save you a lot of time.
This tool effortlessly pumps out an essay within seconds when it would take you many hours to write.
Would you be able to resist using this tool?
I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have been able to as a young person.
ChatGPT is like candy. It’s hard to resist. But resist we must because too much is at stake, especially for young people.
Many people I respect and admire speak enthusiastically about generative AI. There’s this palpable sense that if you don’t get on board the AI train, you’re going to be left behind.
But not everyone thinks this way.
A number of people, including Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, argue that those who become too dependent on AI for support and validation may suffer in the long run.
The use of AI is resulting in unbuilt skills remaining that way and already built skills diminishing.
For example, a group of researchers from MIT recently released a working paper called Your Brain on ChatGPT. This study took 54 students and asked them to perform a specific task over four sessions: writing an essay.
The students were split into three groups:
The researchers examined students’ brain activity as they worked on their essays to assess cognitive engagement and cognitive load. They found that the brain-only group had higher levels of neural connectivity, which was associated with stronger memory and firmer ownership of the written work.
The researchers stated in the discussion section of their working paper:
“[AI tools] may unintentionally hinder deep cognitive processing, retention and authentic engagement with written material. If users rely heavily on AI tools, they may achieve superficial fluency but fail to internalize the knowledge or feel a sense of ownership over it.”
The researchers did something really interesting in the fourth and final essay writing session: they switched the groups.
The students in the brain-only group could now use ChatGPT to write their essays and the LLM group had to rely on their brains (no more ChatGPT for them).
How did each group do?
The brain-only group performed better when using ChatGPT. These students had already engaged with the ideas more deeply and therefore seemed able to critically examine the information ChatGPT brought up.
In contrast, the LLM group struggled when it came to just using their brains after using AI to write their essays for the first three sessions.
The lead researcher of this study, Dr Nataliya Kosmyna, summed it up nicely when she said in a TV interview, “Use your brain”.
What I take from this working paper is that if you want to have a deeper learning experience and create more original work, it’s best to avoid using generative AI. But if you must use AI, hold off on using it in the early stages of a writing project.
If you feel like you’ve become dependent on AI, it’s not too late to turn things around.
The human brain is incredibly resilient. You can learn to work differently. You can learn how to learn.
In the book The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop state:
“More than ever before, what kids need now is to become better at learning. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating rapidly, and everyone agrees that the pace of change will continue to be dizzying. Uncertainty is the new norm. No one knows exactly what shifts in jobs and society are in store. What can best protect and prepare our kids? Rose Luckin, a British professor and AI expert is blunt: Make them “good at learning.” The only thing that can insulate them from rapid change and give them the confidence to move forward is the ability to learn and adapt.”
It’s not too late to reclaim your cognitive power. But you’ll have to push your brain to the point of discomfort without using AI.
Just like you can’t build muscle by getting an exoskeleton to lift heavy weights for you, you’ll have to do the work and resist the temptation to outsource tasks to generative AI. But it’s important to get clear on why you want to build cognitive power and resist the allure of AI.
When a man I used to train at the gym with told me he was using AI to write his blog posts, my first thought was, “Why would you want to do that?”
I refuse to use generative AI to write any of my blogs. Why? Because for the most part, I get a lot of satisfaction from writing.
Yes, it can be frustrating and painful to write.
Yes, I usually always feel awkward and clumsy as I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
Yes, it can take a lot of time to write an article.
But writing is a form of thinking. It helps me to make sense of the world. It also gives me a sense of purpose.
When I put a piece of my own writing out into the world, I feel good about it. I wrestled with ideas and, as a result, learnt something new.
If I offload all of my work to ChatGPT, I’ve robbed myself of a valuable opportunity to think, learn, and grow.
As Dr Nancy Colier states in her book The Power of Off:
“We are conditioned to believe that easier means better, that the less we have to do, the happier we will be. But often this is not in line with people’s actual experiences. We feel good when we are productive and engaged, which requires effort.”
It’s only natural to be amazed by the things AI can do. But it’s also important to be fully aware of what this technology has the potential to do to our brains, relationships, and the quality of our lives.
Based on the research I’ve read so far, I’m not convinced this technology is good for young people to use. It’s too easy to become dependent on using generative AI, to fall for its hallucinations, and for cognitive skills to atrophy or not develop at all. Let’s also not forget how energy-intensive all those data centres are.
This is why I’m resisting using generative AI as much as possible.
If you care about your brain, people, the health of the planet, and all the things that make life rich and wonderful, stop and think twice before turning to an AI chatbot. Be brave: use your brain and trust your thinking.
Toddler (featured in image 2): “Skeptical” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Before adopting any new technology, the Amish will carefully consider how the device or app could impact their values, community, and way of life.
In these times of rapid change, I believe this is a valuable practice for all of us.
I recently received an email from a company that had developed an AI mind-mapping tool.
The email included a special offer. If I blogged about this AI mind mapping tool, I’d receive a year’s free pro-subscription.
Look, I love free stuff. When I see the word ‘free’, something funny happens in my brain.
I come from a thrifty family who hate waste and excessive consumption. For as long as I can remember, we’ve always received free items from others. Old bikes, broken laptops, and fridges (you name it!): we’d take the stuff, fix it, and use it.
As a family friend used to joke, “If it’s too good to throw away, give it to the Genoveses!”
But as I looked at this offer of a free subscription to mind mapping software, the usual rush of dopamine I’d get when I saw the word ‘FREE’ just wasn’t happening.
I felt nervous and uneasy.
I took a closer look at the website. At first glance, the tool looked quite impressive. You could import text, PDFs, images, and books into it, and the tool would automatically generate a mind map for you within seconds.
The website claimed this was a tool “Empowering 100,000+ thinkers”. It said it could save me time. I could generate and seamlessly edit mind maps. All of this sounded good in theory.
So, why was I having such a strong negative reaction to this new AI tool?
I recently finished reading a book called The Extinction of Experience: Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World.
In this book, author Christine Rosen argues that we are facing a human crisis caused by Big Tech. The widespread adoption of technologies, such as social media, dating apps, and smartphones, has fundamentally altered the human experience — and not for the better.
Interacting with screens all day long and living in virtual worlds that reward us for sharing our most private thoughts has diminished the human experience and left us feeling disconnected.
Rosen argues we run the risk of developing habits of mind and machine-like behaviours that lead us towards an impoverished experience of the world.
In one part of her book, Rosen discusses the decline of skills like handwriting. She states:
“Like species decline, skills decline gradually.”
This sentence made me stop in my tracks. It stood out to me. Why? Because I have felt some of my skills declining in recent years.
So, when I checked out this AI mind mapping tool, I put my Amish cap on and asked myself the following questions:
If I were new to the practice of mind mapping and had only just discovered mind mapping software, things might have been different. I would have had no awareness of what I was missing out on.
But I have been mind mapping by hand, with pen and paper, for over 20 years. I don’t use any fancy apps or software (I never have).
This has been a deliberate choice on my part to preserve and sustain a practice that helps me understand and learn new information in a highly effective way.
I worry that switching from pen and paper to keyboard, mouse, and computer will cause something fundamental to change (and be lost) about my current mind mapping experience and practice.
Before adopting any app or device, you need to get clear on what job you are hiring this piece of technology to do. I use mind mapping to learn and clarify my thinking. Could this mind mapping tool do this for me?
This mind mapping software could produce a mind map for me within seconds. As one student writes in a testimonial on the website:
“I post my own lecture notes to generate a very concentrated mind map for me. I don’t have to spend 3-6 hours writing my own mind maps, which I often can’t do very well.”
Another person leaves a five-star review, “No more messy brainstorming”.
However, all of this completely misses the point of mind mapping.
The process of mind mapping is just as important as the final, often messy, mind map.
When I mind map, I’m not concerned about creating a work of art or saving time (it takes as long as it takes to understand a topic). I want to take my time, settle into the process, and avoid feeling rushed. Mind mapping by hand allows me to do this.
Creating a mind map on a computer screen quickly and outsourcing the job to AI puts me in a speedy, turbocharged frame of mind, which is not conducive to deep learning.
Mind mapping is a practice that forces me to slow down.
This slowing down is super important because the world around me is sending me signals to speed up and go faster and faster! When I’m in turbocharge mode, I’m more likely to get distracted and feel overwhelmed.
I’m trying to resist this frantic pace because I want to do things thoroughly and at my own speed. Watching a mind map get created within seconds isn’t what I want or need. It shifts me into overdrive mode, which makes it much harder to learn.
Mind mapping by hand also allows me to think deeply about ideas and how they are connected. The only way I can see those connections and understand them is by reading through the information, thinking about how I would convey that information as a picture and in mind map form.
When you outsource the process to mind mapping software, you don’t get the same deep understanding as you would if you took the time to do it yourself by hand. It feels superficial. To me, it feels like the McDonald’s of Mind Mapping: fast, convenient, but ultimately, not particularly nourishing for my brain.
Using mind mapping software also bypasses something else that brings me joy and satisfaction: it feels really nice to work with my hands.
As Rosen says, “We have a human need to see, touch and make things with our hands”.
Making a mind map with your hands may not be quick, easy, or convenient, but it provides a very rewarding experience for your brain and soul. Personally, it makes me feel calm, grounded, and more connected to ideas, myself, and the world.
I don’t want to be ignorant or closed-minded. This is why I created a free account with this mind mapping AI tool and attempted to generate three mind maps.
The first mind map was on an article I’d read. The mind map focused on just a small section of the article (conspiracy theories). If I hadn’t read the entire article, I would have missed the important science on this topic.
The second mind map was on creating a meal plan for a trip away. Although the mind map provided some ideas, I was left feeling dissatisfied and uninspired. You can see my hand-drawn mind map on a meal plan, which I created for a family trip, compared to the AI-generated one below.
Which mind map do you prefer?
For the third and final mind map that I tried to create, I entered the following prompt:
“Create a mind map on the book ‘Die with Zero’ by Bill Perkins?”
I encountered this error message:
“System resources have been exhausted. Please try again later.”
Instead of feeling frustrated, I was grateful for this message as it highlighted another problem with using mind mapping software: when the tech goes down or power goes out, you are rendered helpless. It also reminded me of how energy-intensive AI is to run.
I went away and mind mapped this book by hand (I’d just finished reading it and had marked up several ideas). You can see the mind map I created below (it took me approximately 40 minutes to do).
I was curious to see if my mind map would resemble the one the mind mapping software generated. So the next day, I entered the same prompt again. Less than 3 seconds later, a mind map appeared on the screen (you can see it here). Was this a mind map on the same brilliant book I’d just read?
It seemed like AI slop.
I felt disconnected from the ideas. The spirit of the book just wasn’t there! I preferred my own mind map.
There is a freedom in mind mapping by hand, away from screens and without AI. The freedom comes not only from using your hands, brain, and creativity, but also from being able to focus on the task at hand.
It’s all too easy to get distracted when working on a computer. That’s why I have set up a dedicated space in my office, away from screens, where I do my mind mapping practice.
Mind mapping is a sacred practice for me. Doing it on a computer and outsourcing the process feels abstract and detached. I can see and feel what is being lost from the process.
Some tech enthusiasts may label me a “luddite”, but as Rosen says, “not every new thing is an improvement on the old”.
I say, stick with what works. Let’s not overcomplicate something that is simple but highly effective when it comes to learning. Put aside your fear of creating messy mind maps, step away from the screen, and enjoy the experience of making a mind map by hand.
