Stopping Short

This Pew Research unpacks what we've been observing for a while now. When you search on Google these days, there’s often a neat little AI summary right at the top. It’s super handy and a time-saver. You have quick answers without having to click a bunch of links. But it comes at a cost as the research shows. When people see these AI-generated summaries, they actually click on fewer links to explore further. In fact, click-through rates drop from around 15% to just 8%. Plus, many don’t bother digging into the sources cited within those summaries either. Instead, the summary feels like the final stop for their search.

This shift isn’t just about convenience, it might be fundamentally changing how young people think. Turns out, younger users (think teens and people in their early 20s) who rely more on AI for info also tend to show weaker critical thinking skills. When answers are served on a silver platter, it’s easy to skip all the mental heavy lifting: no cross-checking facts, no puzzles to solve, no second-guessing. This “cognitive offloading” means the brain’s workbench gets a little emptier, and that’s not great for developing deep reasoning or learning how to evaluate info carefully.

So, while AI summaries can save time and help get quick info, there’s a risk in leaning on them too much especially for young folks still building those crucial intellectual muscles. The challenge for educators is to make sure students don’t just stop at the summary but keep digging, questioning, and thinking critically. That applies to the rest of us to but we'd need to watch ourselves and keep from falling into this trap.