The First Generation to Decline: What Technology Has Done to the Mind

For the first time in modern history, a generation is underperforming the one before it. If Gen Z is in trouble, then so are the rest of us. 

Not in access. Public education is free. 
Not in exposure to information. Perhaps too much exposure.
Not in technological sophistication. Can anyone figure out how to tell if a picture is AI generated or not? I don't think technological sophistication is lacking. 

But in sustained attention, deep reading ability, working memory, and mental resilience. Not the fault of Gen Z. they are not stupid. 

That should concern us.

Thankfully, the research is in about the effects of phones and tablets on our brains, but more so among our youth. Over the past decade, researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have documented a significant shift beginning around 2012; the moment smartphones and screen-based childhood became the norm. Rates of anxiety, depression, and fragmentation of attention rose sharply. Academic endurance declined. Focus narrowed. Cognitive stamina weakened. They say the brain itself feels no pain. However, I definitely can feel something lacking in my brain after a scrolling session in TikTok. 

At the same time, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has shown that the medium through which we read quite literally reshapes the brain (Oh! So that's that feeling in my brain. I knew it was something.) The brain builds different circuitry when we read digitally versus when we read deeply from a printed text. Screens promote skimming. Books promote immersion. The difference between standing in the shallow end of a pool vs treading the deep end. 

Way back when in my day...No, please don't! This is not nostalgia. This is neurology. We have quietly replaced depth with speed. We have mistaken convenience for learning.
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And we are now seeing the consequences.

​The Problem

​Technology has not merely entered the classroom. It has replaced the cognitive struggle that builds the mind.
Students now:

• Type instead of writing, it's just easier.
• Scroll instead of lingering, it's just easier.
• Copy and paste instead of construct, it's just easier.
• Search instead of remembering, it's just easier. 

Learning has become frictionless. And friction is precisely what builds neural strength. No different than building muscles. A lot of our youth have become the individuals who sit on gym equipment without actually training. Going to the gym every day doesn't build muscle. Resistance is what builds muscle. 

Cognitive development requires effortful encoding. When we remove effort, we remove depth. When we remove depth, we weaken understanding.

Generation Z is the first generation raised fully inside the digital ecosystem. And early data suggest they are the first generation in modern times to show measurable decline in certain cognitive and psychological markers relative to previous cohorts. I am not here to say that this is the only reason. Clearly, teachers are overwhelmed and underpaid. That is a high priority problem as well. The point being is that a rewiring of a youth's brain goes beyond a logistical crisis. It becomes a biological reprogramming that nature was never meant to undertake. The cognitive part of their brains is not fully developed.  

​This is not an attack on Gen Z. It is a critique of the environment we have given them.

​The Research

​The findings are consistent across multiple domains:

1. Screen Saturation and Mental Health
Haidt’s research correlates the smartphone era with sharp increases in adolescent anxiety and depression. Twenge’s generational studies show similar patterns: more screen time, less psychological well-being. The human brain did not evolve for constant digital stimulation. It evolved for depth, silence, narrative, and sustained problem-solving.

2. Digital Reading vs. Deep Reading
Maryanne Wolf’s work on the “reading brain” demonstrates that deep reading activates complex neural pathways associated with empathy, inference, and critical reasoning. When reading shifts primarily to screens, those pathways weaken. Students become efficient skimmers but weaker thinkers.

A PDF is not cognitively equivalent to a book. A scrolling feed is not cognitively equivalent to a chapter.
Physical books create spatial anchors in memory, the left page, the bottom paragraph, the dog-eared corner. Screens flatten that experience.

3. Handwriting and Memory
Multiple studies from universities such as Princeton and the University of Stavanger show that students who handwrite notes retain more information than those who type them. Cursive writing in particular engages more extensive motor planning and neural integration than simple printing or typing. It strengthens spelling memory. It improves recall. It slows thought to a pace that allows structure to form.

Typing is efficient. Cursive is formative. When cursive was removed from most school systems, we removed more than an aesthetic tradition. We removed a neurological training ground.

​Why Going Back Is Not Optional

This is not about romanticizing the past. It is about understanding how the brain works. Cognitive strength is built through resistance.
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• Hard copy books require patience.
• Handwriting requires discipline.
• Long-form essays require structured reasoning.

Convenience has never produced greatness. Discipline has. Even prodigies need a workout. 

The argument that “technology prepares students for the future” misunderstands the issue. Technology is a tool. But if the tool replaces the cognitive labor necessary for mastery, it does not prepare students; it weakens them. Why could we adults recall phone numbers of our family and friends from memory without a rolodex? The more we use our memory, the more our brain can imprint data. 
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Students must first build the mind. Then they may wield the machine. Without cognitive strength, technology becomes a crutch. With cognitive strength, technology becomes leverage.

​What Pax Academia Will Do Differently

​At Pax Academia, we are not anti-technology. We are anti-cognitive erosion.

We require:

• Cursive fluency
• Hard copy classical texts
• Handwritten first drafts of essays
• Structured, disciplined reading

Students will write their essays first in cursive. Only then will they type them.

Many might push back and say, "that is too hard and tedious." My response is simple. "Exactly."  I am glad we are on the same page.

Why?

Because the first draft should be thinking, not editing, not formatting, not copy-pasting. The act of forming letters continuously on paper slows the mind just enough for structure to emerge. Arguments become deliberate. Sentences become intentional. Thought becomes visible.

After that, technology can refine. But refinement must follow formation.

• We believe that the restoration of intellectual strength requires intentional friction.
• We believe that the mind must be trained, not entertained.
• We believe that education should produce depth, not distraction.

​The Choice Before Us

​​We can continue accelerating convenience and watch attention spans shrink. Or we can restore the habits that formed every great thinker before the digital age.

• Cursive.
• Hard books.
• Deep reading.
• Structured writing.

These are not relics. They are neurological necessities.

If we want a generation capable of thinking clearly, reasoning deeply, and leading wisely, we must build the habits that create such minds. At Pax Academia, we choose depth over speed.

The future belongs to those who can think. And thinking requires resistance.