Is ChatGPT replacing our brain or enhancing it?
- Abby Grace Chambers
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Millions of people use ChatGPT on a daily basis all around the world, including students. In 2025 alone, ChatGPT received around 193 million visits per day according to Demand Sage. AI-powered trend analysis tool, Exploding Topics shares that over 45% of ChatGPT’s users are under the age of 25, and ChatGPT gets over 2.5 billion prompts per day.
“I use [ChatGPT] for explaining math concepts that I don’t understand and other school things,” sophomore Shelby Howell said. “I also use it for daily life.”
Some aspects ChatGP
T can positively assist with are with the development of schedules, sparking ideas and more.
“ChatGPT is useful for explaining complex ideas in simpler terms, and it can be fun just exploring what it has to say about random ideas,” freshman Wesley Baillairge said. “In past experiences, it has helped me generate nutrition and workout plans that keep everything balanced.”
ChatGPT can be a helpful tool to use for brainstorming and greater understanding, but people must be careful to not let it replace their thinking. Howell shared that some students may not pay attention in class or work hard for grades because they can put their assignments into ChatGPT and get the answers without having to do any work, which she indicated isn’t a healthy habit.
“[ChatGPT is] genuinely so bad for many reasons, including pushing the decline of our critical thinking skills,” freshman Willow Roy said. “Many people become so reliant on this technology that they use it for everything. It’s also harmful to school-aged children because they use this tool to do all of their assignments; therefore, don’t learn anything.”
Particularly for people in school, students may be tempted to use ChatGPT as a quicker way to get the answers and not have to think as much.
“For students, I believe that [ChatGPT] is more harmful than helpful,” Mrs. Nancy Brannon, ninth grade biology teacher and department head of science, said. “Part of education is learning how to learn. When students use ChatGPT to complete their homework, they are missing learning opportunities. The purpose of the homework is to reinforce ideas taught in the classroom. By relying on ChatGPT to find the answers, students do not develop their own brain pathways to the information.”
Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that ChatGPT seems to have a more negative effect on the brain than a positive one.
“Over the course of several months [in an MIT study], ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study,” The Time Magazine said in an article from June 2025. “[The research] suggests that the usage of [ChatGPT] could actually harm learning, especially for younger users.”
This artificial intelligence, while it can make homework and life problems easier, impacts our brain development over time.
“In my opinion, ChatGPT has a negative effect on our brains because if we rely on it too much for our answers, our critical thinking, problem solving and creativity can weaken,” Baillairge said.
Even though there are disadvantages involved in using ChatGPT, that doesn’t mean the answer is to get rid of it entirely. ChatGPT can provide many benefits, but students need to stay aware of the long-term risks.
“As with all developments in technology, there will be uses for good and uses for evil,” Mrs. Brannon said. “We have to be wise with all tools of technology.”