What Technology Is Doing to the Way We Think — and What We Can Do About It

We are living in an age of miracles. And I mean that sincerely.

In the palm of your hand, you carry more information than any library in history. You can video call a friend on the other side of the world, navigate a foreign city without a map, and have a question answered in seconds that might have taken scholars weeks to research just a generation ago. That is nothing short of extraordinary.

But here is a question I find myself sitting with more and more — one I hear echoed in classrooms, in conversations with parents, in the quiet moments after we finally put our phones down:

Are we becoming more capable with all this technology… or are we quietly becoming less?

This is not a rant against progress. It is not a call to throw your smartphone in the river. It is an honest, loving conversation about something worth paying attention to.

Because the tools we reach for every day are shaping us — whether we realize it or not.

When Convenience Does the Thinking for Us

Think about the last time you memorized a phone number. Or calculated a tip without your phone. Or found your way somewhere new without GPS guiding you turn by turn.

For most of human history, people carried enormous amounts of information in their minds. Phone numbers, addresses, scripture passages, directions, multiplication tables — these lived inside us because they had to. Memory was not optional; it was essential.

Today, we have quietly handed much of that responsibility to our devices. Researchers have even given this a name: digital amnesia. Studies have found that many people cannot recall basic information — like the phone numbers of people they love — because they have fully delegated that job to their phones.

Our brains are adaptive, remarkable organs. But that adaptability cuts both ways. When we stop using certain mental muscles, those muscles weaken. The brain optimizes for what we ask of it — and if we stop asking it to remember, to calculate, to navigate… it begins to let those abilities fade.

What the Research Is Telling Us

Educators and psychologists have been watching these trends closely, and what they are finding is worth our attention.

Studies have found that students who use laptops for non-academic browsing during class tend to score lower on assessments — and so do the students sitting near them, simply from the distraction spilling over. Research has also found that frequent digital multitasking, constantly toggling between social media, messages, and coursework, can reduce attention span and weaken academic performance.

Other research points to something even more sobering: heavy digital multitasking may actually reduce deep comprehension and long-term retention. In other words, it is not just that we are distracted. We may be losing some of our ability to think slowly, carefully, and deeply.

Technology is not the enemy of learning. But when it fragments our attention into a hundred tiny pieces, deep thinking becomes very difficult to sustain.

A Skill Gap Nobody Expected

Here is something that surprises many people: despite growing up more connected to technology than any generation before them, many young people today are struggling with some surprisingly basic skills.

Teachers are noticing that students sometimes struggle to write extended, structured thoughts. They are fluent in the language of texts and captions — short, fast, and punchy — but less practiced in the patient, layered thinking that longer writing requires.

This is not about intelligence. These young people are bright, creative, and capable. But the tools we use shape the skills we develop. Texting rewards speed and brevity. Deep writing rewards patience, structure, and sustained thought.

The tools we reach for every day don’t just help us — they quietly train us.

That is a truth worth sitting with.

We Were Made for Connection — Not Just Communication

One of the quiet ironies of our hyper-connected world is how many people feel more isolated than ever.

When most of our interaction happens through screens, something gets lost. Tone disappears. Body language vanishes. The kind of presence that actually makes another person feel seen and known — that does not translate through a text message.

Psychologists have noted that heavy device use can reduce the face-to-face interaction that is so critical for developing real social confidence. When we avoid difficult conversations by sending a message instead of having a talk, those relational muscles do not grow. And in-person settings can start to feel more anxious and unfamiliar.

We were created for real, embodied connection. That is not just a social science finding — it is woven into who we are as human beings.

When the Battery Dies

There is a moment most of us know well.

The phone dies. The GPS goes silent. The apps disappear. And suddenly — often without warning — we realize just how much we have been leaning on that small glowing screen.

We cannot remember where we were going. We cannot recall who we were supposed to call. Information we once held in our minds is now locked behind a dead battery.

It is easy to laugh it off. But I think these moments are telling us something important: we have slowly, almost imperceptibly, shifted the weight of our mental life onto our devices. And that is worth paying attention to.

Here Is the Good News

I want to be clear about something, because this matters:

Technology is not making us dumb. How we use it is what makes the difference.

A hammer can build a house or break a window. A calculator can help a student learn or replace the thinking entirely. A smartphone can connect us to the world’s knowledge — or fill every quiet moment with noise so that deep thought never has a chance to take root.

The goal is not to unplug and live off the grid. The goal is to use these incredible tools with intention — as extensions of our minds, not replacements for them.

Here are five gentle, practical ways to start doing that today.

1. Exercise Your Memory Again

Pick a few things to memorize on purpose — a phone number, a meaningful Scripture verse, the directions to a place you visit often. Memory, like faith, grows stronger when we actually use it.

Start small. You might be surprised how quickly the muscle comes back.

2. Create Sacred Space for Quiet Thinking

Deep thinking does not happen in the gaps between notifications. It requires stillness.

Consider protecting at least a few minutes each day — maybe in the morning before you check your phone — for silence, prayer, reflection, or journaling. Let your mind wander without a screen to catch it. You may be amazed at what rises to the surface.

3. Write More Than You Text

Challenge yourself, maybe once a week, to write something longer. A letter to a friend. A reflection on something you are learning. A journal entry that goes beyond a few lines.

Long-form writing builds mental clarity, sharpens logic, and deepens creativity in ways that a quick message simply cannot replicate.

4. Protect Real Conversation

Phone at the dinner table? Try leaving it in the other room for one meal a day. Look people in the eye. Ask questions and actually wait for the full answer. Practice the art of being fully present.

The ability to truly connect with another person is one of the most powerful and holy gifts we have. It deserves to be cultivated.

5. Use Technology as a Tool, Not a Refuge

Technology is spectacular when it extends what we can do. It becomes harmful when we use it to escape the work of thinking, feeling, or connecting.

Let it assist your mind. Do not let it replace it.

A Final Thought

Every generation has faced tools that reshaped the way people live and think. The printing press. The calculator. The telephone. The internet. Each one brought both gifts and challenges — and each generation had to learn, sometimes slowly and sometimes painfully, how to use them wisely.

We are in one of those moments right now.

Our devices are astonishing. But our minds — created to imagine, to reason, to love, to seek truth and beauty and God — those are more astonishing still.

Technology can be a remarkable servant. Let’s be careful it doesn’t become a quiet master.

I would love to hear from you. Have you noticed these patterns in your own life, or in the lives of young people around you? What practices have helped you stay sharp and present in a world full of digital noise?

Leave a comment below and let’s keep this conversation going. 

— Written with care for the minds and hearts in this community