Nonverbal communication more commonly serves practical than…

Questions

Pleаse reаd the fоllоwing text, then respоnd in а handwritten essay. Prompt The WSJ article “Is AI Turning our Brains to Mush?” presents a range of college student viewpoints on whether AI is harmful, helpful, or somewhere in between. After reading the article,(located below the prompt) write a well-organized essay (about 2-3 handwritten pages) that answers this question: Which viewpoint (or combination of viewpoints) about AI do you find most convincing, and why? In your response: Summarize one or two of the student viewpoints you find significant. Briefly explain what each student argues. Analyze the reasoning: What evidence, experiences, or assumptions support each viewpoint? How credible or convincing are they? Respond with your own position: Which argument do you find stronger, and why? What factors (age, moderation, type of game, motivation) might influence your judgment? You do not need to discuss every viewpoint: focus on one or two and explore them thoughtfully. Essay Guidelines Include a clear thesis in your introduction. Support your reasoning with specific examples or details from the article. Organize your essay with clear paragraphs: intro → summary → analysis → conclusion. You may refer to personal or observed experiences if they help explain your reasoning. No outside research is needed: use the WSJ article only. Works cited entry is not required. Some sample thesis statements about a different topic. Looking at the structure of these statements might help as you formulate your response. Although several students warn that gaming distracts from academics, the argument that gaming can build focus and teamwork is more persuasive, as it relies on specific goals and realistic boundaries rather than fear-based assumptions about the dangers of gaming. After comparing two student perspectives, I find that gaming is neither inherently good nor bad; it becomes meaningful when players use it to learn and socialize. The student who claims that gaming damages attention spans overlooks the evidence that some types of games improve problem-solving; this shows that the issue is not gaming itself but how it’s managed. Is AI Turning our Brains to Mush? Sept. 2, 2025, Wall Street Journal Embrace the Rough Edges “That’s a really thoughtful question,” ChatGPT mused in response to this question. “There’s some evidence on both sides.” This predictably insipid response from OpenAI’s chatbot is emblematic of the general smoothing-out effect that AI-powered tools inspire. As chatbots become more ubiquitous, the number of rough edges in life will slowly be smoothed out as we will all come to expect the effortless and the instantaneous. Need a topic for a term paper? Forgo hours spent in the library leafing through tomes and simply ask Claude to create 20 for you. Have a topic, but don’t know how to structure your paper? Eliminate time spent wrestling with different ideas and arguments and have Claude craft a well-argued outline. But that isn’t the point. Life, especially college, needs its rough edges. Even before the advent of AI chatbots, there was pressure to distance yourself from your passions and pursue the practical course—a love of writing somehow becomes a degree in business analytics. AI tools intensify this dynamic as the satisfaction of enduring and ultimately appreciating the process of discovery is smoothed into oblivion and replaced with shallow efficiency. Passions, and the interests that inspire them, are often born from unexpected encounters with complicated ideas. Using AI to curate these encounters will only alienate us from inspiration. —Eliot Bramble, American University, applied mathematics AI Is the Future In 1981 only about 18% of schools had computers, but within a decade, nearly all schools had at least one. AI adoption in schools is advancing at an even faster pace, reflecting the need for students to engage with the tools that shape daily life. A June 2025 Nature study comparing AI tutoring with in-class learning found that students master material more efficiently and with greater engagement using AI. Similarly, a report from Macquarie University revealed that university students using an AI-powered chatbot in the two weeks before an exam scored nearly 10% higher exam grades than those without such tools. These improvements in student outcomes and higher test scores can be attributed to AI’s ability to offer personalized learning, immediate feedback and the breaking down of abstract concepts for students. Computers have transformed how we live, work and connect, laying the foundation for AI to take these advancements to new heights. AI ensures students stay ahead in a fast-changing digital world and thrive with the evolving tools of our time. —Lilliana McElroy, Baylor University, finance and supply chain management An Education Reshuffle Last year I was the graduate student instructor for the Ph.D. level chemical reaction engineering course at my university. Out of curiosity, I fed homework to ChatGPT to see how it would do. In seconds, it solved the problems correctly and completely—a task that took me nearly the whole day to accomplish. When applied to my research, however, chatbots prove far less capable, producing spurious and often contradictory results. These chatbots are good at solving closed-ended, well-defined problems of the type seen in classroom settings, but they fail at producing anything novel, as they are trained on pre-existing information. Still, for lower-level education—K-12 education and undergraduate coursework—they work well. What we need is more open-ended, project-based work for students that mimics what they will encounter after graduation. This should become the standard, because if current teaching methods persist, it’s likely that the only skill many students will leave school with is knowing how to prompt a chatbot effectively. —Jared Arkfeld, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, chemical engineering It’s a Good Tutor When AI-powered tools act as answer dispensers, they risk fostering overreliance. Students may skip the productive struggle that drives problem-solving, experiencing short-term gains but performing worse when tested without AI support. This aligns with cognitive science research on “cognitive offloading,” in which easy access to answers encourages students to remember where to find information rather than internalizing how to generate it. But well-structured AI tutors can enhance rather than diminish problem-solving skills. Studies show that AI systems designed to provide hints, elicit self-explanations, and scaffold retrieval practice can improve learning outcomes, engagement and efficiency compared with active-learning classrooms. The key is balance: AI should be deployed as a tutor that challenges students to explain their reasoning, prompts them to attempt the problems first, and offers targeted feedback. AI doesn’t inherently weaken students’ abilities. The danger lies in unstructured, answer-on-demand use. When integrated thoughtfully with guardrails that promote reasoning, retrieval and metacognition, AI can accelerate the problem-solving and critical thinking capacities it is often accused of eroding. —Gia-Bao Dam, Yale University, biomedical engineering The Young Will Struggle The best kind of learning comes from being faced with a question, however mundane, for which there isn’t an easy answer. You pick apart each facet of the problem in your head, mull it over, and question your assumptions until you begin to gain some understanding. The struggle matters more than the answer—it’s how you learn creativity and perseverance. It’s how you fall in love with a subject. ChatGPT to a student is like a calculator to a 6-year-old working on arithmetic homework. Students who use AI won’t get enough practice forming arguments and connections on their own. AI churns out quick, mostly accurate responses—a boon for professionals in many fields. But in sacrificing the struggle for instant gratification, AI-using students, especially younger children in a critical stage of development, will be more likely to struggle when later faced with questions that require more complex or unconventional thinking. I’m lucky that I didn’t have access to ChatGPT until I had already developed an appreciation for tackling tough academic problems independently. I can’t say future generations will have the same experience. —Jessica Liu, Harvard University, applied mathematics