The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
Since its launch three years ago, ChatGPT has grown dramatically, with 700 million weekly active users, making it one of the most widely used large language models.
Every Google search provides a detailed artificial intelligence overview that saves users from ever having to do research, and just yesterday, I found an AI summary generated while trying to watch a YouTube video. This pop-up was ironic given that I was intentionally watching a longer video to try to avoid consuming hours’ worth of short-form content.
Students on college campuses are no strangers to professors who have a lot — good or bad — to say about AI. Students are not unaware of the environmental harms or mental health concerns associated with phone use that they hear about on a regular basis, such as depression or anxiety. While these are all valid concerns, I am most worried about the death of curiosity.
In an alarmingly short period, education has become less about the pursuit of knowledge and more about completing essays before deadlines or skipping trial and error in favor of optimization. We’ve created a culture that doesn’t care about the in-between moments that occur when working on projects.
We’ve lost the art of the little things, like doing all the readings for a class and accidentally stumbling upon something fascinating, reading for pleasure or making plans with friends that don’t revolve around discussing how challenging it is to try to juggle our workloads.
The signs that more people are feeling the absence of their own curiosity are all around, such as in the rise of trends like the Thought Daughter — a term popularised on social media used to describe women who identify as deeply emotional thinkers with a passion for musings, literature, philosophy and art of all kinds. The personal curricula, a trend initiated by Elizabeth Jean, involves creating self-guided study plans and intentional opportunities for learning outside of traditional academic environments, underscoring a deep desire to take control of creativity and education.
However, this ideal extends far beyond a classroom setting: the lines between work and life have blurred. As I contemplate what life could look like after graduation, I find myself disheartened by most of what I see as I’m constantly reminded that the current climate only finds work meaningful if it’s LinkedIn-worthy.
It’s not enough to simply enjoy hobbies or projects without feeling the need to curate these moments into TikToks and photo dumps or even mention them to people. It’s not that you can’t share the things you love with the people around you — it’s about the performance associated with these projects that are meant to be yours.
We’ve become inundated with the idea that the only projects deserving of our time are those that we can be certain will receive praise from those around us or turn into careers. Many of us have seen influencers roll step-by-step guides on becoming content creators and turning our daily lives into something worthy of watching, but what’s missing from these slideshows and PDFs is the struggle associated with doing so.
Creator Brandon Edelman attributes his success as an influencer to “prioritizing sharing his life over living it.” Even so, videos such as “Making My Passion My Paycheck” or even the sudden push to content creation amidst a government shutdown suggest that we might be falling prey to monetizing our hobbies and lives.
Those who aren’t making an effort to actively monetize their hobbies find themselves unable to escape the feeling that these little joys don’t matter if they’re not a part of some greater narrative and identity — whether it be the artist, the hilltern, the aspiring diplomat or the community advocate. Everything is carefully planned out and exhibited for the world to see.
We’ve lost the choose-your-own-adventure feel of life, both in little and big ways — cutting out curiosity in favor of AI-generated grocery lists and career plans — and we are missing out on opportunities to discover ourselves because it’s not as convenient as having someone or something outline that for us.
This need for shortcuts isn’t entirely our fault. In a world where there’s so much riding on our ability to do a million different things at once in the hopes of job security, there’s no time to slow down and figure things out and fall in love with the process. There’s no time to be bad at anything because we’re convinced that we are always running out of time and thus have to be good at everything.
It’s not enough to have good grades. You need an internship (or maybe two or three), and to volunteer and do something that sets you apart from the thousands of other people all doing the same thing. It seems the only work that has value is work that you can commodify in some way.
We don’t write letters to our friends anymore, watch films without the aim of writing reviews or explore restaurants that don’t come with a 4-star rating or approval from a stranger on the internet.
We’re forgetting that the magic in silly doodles and stories no one ever reads, imperfect pottery, niche interests and loud conversations at dinners with friends are all forms of education too.
We’ve lost our love of knowledge, and in turn, we’re going to lose ourselves. After all, who cares if you’re falling in love with learning if your work’s not done on time?
Adria Liwewe is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for the Eagle.
This piece was edited by Alana Parker, Quinn Volpe and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting, Emma Brown, Arin Burrell, Paige Caron and Andrew Kummeth. Fact-checking done by Aidan Crowe.
