I know I have to come back soon. I know it will happen again – and that is why this thought refuses to let me sleep. People often ask me if I'm still on social media, if I'll ever return, or why I deleted it in the first place. The easy answer I shall offer each time would be that I wanted to focus more on school and spend less time on my phone. But the truth runs far deeper than that.
I'll be honest – brutally so. The reason I deleted social media is because I was becoming intellectually stupid. We all are. I remember being younger, around 13 to 15 years old, and feeling my brain expanding with knowledge. Coming from an education system in Iran, I learned about molecules and atoms in fifth grade, electricity and magnetism in sixth. I was constantly learning, and I could feel it. My neurons were firing, synapses were forming, and knowledge felt tangible.
I am not a genius, and I wasn't back then either. The brain has the capacity to work – it will if you demand. But are we doing that anymore? Now, despite pursuing a degree beyond that so-called rigorous elementary, middle, and high school experience I once had, I have never felt intellectually duller.
The problem extends beyond me. It's a societal issue. I started asking myself: What kind of knowledge will I pass down to my children? As kids, we often saw our parents as endless wells of wisdom. They carried accumulated knowledge that could guide us through life. But what about us? Will we possess that same depth of understanding, or will we rely on AI-generated responses to answer even the simplest of questions they will ask us? These kids learn in the environment we provide – we create for them. What will they learn? I don't want my children's relationship with knowledge to be mediated by ChatGPT. I want them to ask me, to ask nature, to ask the world around them. And yet, I've found myself outsourcing basic intellectual effort – relying on AI to correct my grammar, draft emails, or even structure my thoughts. The most common phrase I've typed on my devices is: Correct that grammatically.
Anyone who denies using AI for cognitive shortcuts is lying. It is everywhere – quietly, insidiously, and almost imperceptibly shaping how we think and process the world around us. In an era where efficiency is prized over depth, AI has become the crutch that allows us to avoid engaging in difficult cognitive work. At first though, it seems harmless I can tell you that, in my prestupid era – letting an algorithm correct a sentence, summarize an article, or generate an email. But over time, these micro-outsourcings accumulate into something far more dangerous: the erosion of independent thought and capability.
AI and social media go hand in hand. Social media was an early, mediated version of AI, preparing us for what's ahead. Many people recently point to ideological conformity in politics, particularly among liberals, arguing that mass thinking replaced their critical reasoning. This is not limited to liberals, nor conservatives, nor any singular ideology – across the spectrum, people are surrendering their cognitive agency to narratives that have been optimized for virality, not accuracy. In this system, intellectual rigor is replaced by echo chambers, and the ability to think critically is steadily eroded as people grow accustomed to consuming prepackaged arguments rather than constructing their own.
Genuine thought has become laborious – not because thinking is inherently difficult, but because we have trained ourselves to avoid it. The moment we encounter complexity, we look for shortcuts. Instead of wrestling with an idea, we search for a thread explaining it in 280 characters. Instead of forming an argument, we look for that viral clip that already aligns with our beliefs. We don't debate anymore; we retweet. We don't reflect; we react. And because everyone is operating within the same algorithmically curated reality, the result is mass thinking – that echo chamber that poses as discourse but is, in reality, an automated loop of pre-digested opinions.
The issue extends beyond politics or intellectual laziness. It affects our very sense of identity. The way we define ourselves is increasingly outsourced to digital metrics: likes, shares, follower counts, their lens, their reality; although I am certain they do not possess that either (the reality). People curate their lives not for authenticity, but for algorithmic appeal. We don't even know what we desire anymore. But we do know what they desire. Instead of being, we are performing. Instead of experiencing, we are documenting. The consequence? A detachment from real-world engagement, real-life relationships, real intellectual struggle, and real personalities.
I see this most clearly in academia. As a student in bioinformatics, a field rooted in problem-solving, I should feel intellectually stimulated every day. But I often find myself doing the opposite – turning to AI to troubleshoot, refine, or even generate ideas. The dependence is subtle but undeniable. When was the last time I sat with a problem, uninterrupted, for hours, without asking ChatGPT for assistance? When was the last time I struggled through the frustration of not knowing, of being lost in uncertainty, before arriving at an answer on my own? This kind of intellectual persistence is what drives true learning, yet it is becoming increasingly rare.
This reliance on external thinking has also transformed how we interact socially. Attention spans have been destroyed. conversations are shallower. People talk in soundbites, regurgitate headlines, and rarely engage in meaningful discourse. It's as if everyone is a spokesperson for the algorithm that trained them. I've noticed that in group discussions, there's often a pause – an unconscious hesitation – where people instinctively reach for their phones before contributing. We don't trust our own memory. We don't trust our own instincts. Instead of engaging in conversation, we fact-check in real-time, not for the sake of truth but for the sake of winning. But we are not winning.
We were always consumers of information – before this era, we read books, magazines, and newspapers. But the difference was in the pace. We had time to reflect, to sit with ideas, to develop our own arguments and create original thoughts. The process of consuming information was slower, more intentional, and allowed room for critical thinking. But as I said, pre-era. That is not happening anymore. Now, information floods us at a relentless speed, leaving no space for reflection. We don't process – we absorb. We don't question – we scroll.
This pattern is not accidental. Tech companies have spent years perfecting the science of addiction, training our brains to prioritize dopamine hits over deep thought. Scrolling feels effortless; thinking feels exhausting. But this isn't just about social media addiction – it's about a fundamental shift in how we relate to the world. We are losing the ability to sit with discomfort, to wrestle with ambiguity, to be alone with our thoughts without seeking immediate distraction. I deleted social media to understand how I, me, think and feel about the world – not my phone, not my Twitter, not my Instagram.
On my morning commute using the train, I challenge myself to keep my phone in my pocket. I try to be present. And what do I see? A sea of bowed heads, curved necks, faces illuminated by screens. I try to be fully present, to resist the urge to reach for my phone in moments – but it feels unnatural. If I make eye contact with someone, I will be considered weird. There's an odd anxiety in just being, in allowing thoughts to unfold without interruption. I know I'm not alone in this. We have trained ourselves to fear boredom, yet boredom is where creativity is born. It is in the quiet, unoccupied moments that new ideas emerge. But we no longer allow ourselves that space.
The more I reflect on this, the more I realize that deleting social media was not just about reclaiming my time. It was about reclaiming my mind. It was my deliberate act of resistance against the forces that want to dictate how I think, what I believe, and how I define myself. I don't want my thoughts to be dictated by algorithms. I don't want my intellectual labor to be outsourced to AI. I don't want my ability to focus, create, and connect to be diminished.
It was our sense of consciousness and culture that distinguished us from other animals.
We need to reclaim our species. I know you know. It does seem like we are moving forward, as if we are getting smarter and more capable with computers. But we are digging our own grave – laying the foundation for the next dominant intelligence to replace us. Name the next species as you wish. Maybe this is how natural selection was supposed to happen. I just never thought it would be an artificial selection – by us – to eliminate us.
In the meantime:
I want to think for myself again.
I was able to once (in 6th grade).
I will be able again.
Soluté.
⁃ A 23 y/o Gen Z