Is AI causing us to lose control of our brains?

Psychologist Gloria Mark says yes.
Her research over the past 20 years has found that the average attention span of humans is rapidly decreasing.
From about 150 seconds in 2003, down to nearly 47 seconds in recent years, frequent attention switching increases stress levels, reduces work efficiency, and also affects mental health.
She is especially concerned about AI chatbots.
Because when people let ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini replace themselves in summarizing, analyzing, and judging, the deep thinking processes that could help with learning and memory are skipped.
Over time, just like muscles that lack exercise, critical thinking and cognitive abilities may gradually deteriorate.
The risk is not only in thinking skills.
As more people rely on AI companionship, the parts of human relationships that require time investment, understanding, and communication are weakened, and emotional intelligence and social skills may also be affected.
However, she believes the real problem is not AI itself.
But whether we are still willing to put in the effort to read, think, learn, and build genuine connections with others.
Technology will not disappear, but we need to re-establish how we interact with it.