Kantrowitz: MIT Study Found ChatGPT Users Showed Lowest Brain Engagement
Alex Kantrowitz · OpenAI and Microsoft Tension Boils, Amazon’s Job Automation, Zuck’s Spending Spree · Jun 23, 2025 · at 20:26
Host Alex Kantrowitz summarizes a reported MIT Media Lab study investigating how using generative AI tools like ChatGPT affects neural engagement and critical thinking while writing essays.
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“The study divided 54 subjects, 18 to thirty-nine-year-olds, From the Boston area into three groups and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google search engine, and nothing at all. Researchers used an EEG. I guess that's, yeah, it's a machine that records writers brain activities across 32 regions and found that of the three groups ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement And consistently underperformed at neural linguistic and behavioral levels over the course of several months. ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay and often resorted to copy and paste by the end of the study.”
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