‘Digital Doritos’: Gen Z continues to use AI but fears its effects on thinking and learning

While more than half of young adults use artificial intelligence at least weekly, their skepticism of the technology is growing more quickly than their adoption, according to a recent Gallup report.

“Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 and who are currently aged 14 to 29 – is not convinced that AI enhances creativity or critical thinking, and the majority believe it may come at a cost, particularly to learning,” the report says.

Only 19% of Gen Z say they never use generative AI, while 22% report daily use, 29% report weekly use, and 31% report using the technology monthly or every few months. The study defines generative AI to specifically involve creating new content, “such as writing, brainstorming or images.”

Younger Gen Zers, who are currently K-12 students, are more likely to use AI weekly (56%) than Gen Z adults (48%). Young adults in the workplace are three times more likely to say the risks (48%) outweigh AI’s benefits (15%), and nearly 70% trust human work more than AI-assisted work. A year ago, only 37% of these young workers said the risks outweighed the benefits, while 20% said the benefits were greater.

But Gen Z K-12 students believe they will need to use AI in their later education (52%) or future jobs (48%). Nearly 60% of high school students say they should be prepared for daily AI use upon graduation – a 12-percentage-point increase from last year, according to the report.

More schools (74%) now discuss AI policy – jumping 23 percentage points from last year – and 65% of these schools allow students to use AI for schoolwork. But only 28% of students say their school provides the AI tools for this work.

Growing negative perception

Negative perception of AI, however, has significantly grown among all of Gen Z within the past year, Gallup reports. Gen Z is less excited (22%) and less hopeful (18%) about AI – sharp decreases from 2024 by 14 and nine percentage points, respectively. Gen Z’s anxiety about AI has remained relatively stable at 42%, but their anger toward AI increased nine percentage points to 31%.

Nearly half of Gen Z (49%) say they are curious about AI – an emotion added to the 2025 survey, Gallup reports.

Negative connotations toward AI are greater for nonusers than users. Daily users are more curious (69%), excited (44%) and hopeful (38%) about AI. For those who never use AI, only 28% are curious, 4% are excited, and 2% are hopeful.

But the downward trend is consistent for both daily users and never users. Gen Z daily AI users still dropped 18 percentage points in their excitement and 11 percentage points in their hope for AI.

Additionally, 56% of Gen Z believe AI helps “expedite work” – a 10-percentage-point drop from the year before – while 46% say AI accelerates learning, a seven-point drop.

Hurting learning and critical thinking?

More Gen Zers believe AI is harmful to cognitive thinking (42%) or brainstorming (38%) rather than helpful – 25% and 31%, respectively. Additionally, eight in 10 Gen Z AI users believe the technology will decrease learning capabilities in the future.

“Gen Z’s use of AI is mostly steady, but enthusiasm for it has declined while skepticism has climbed,” the report says. “Gen Zers are more widely questioning AI’s effects on their cognitive skills, particularly in areas tied to thinking, learning and creativity.”

But Gen Zers are not the only ones who fear AI’s threats to cognitive function, according to Georgetown University professor of computer science Cal Newport, who recently published a New York Times piece on the subject.

“Existing brain drains like social media and email reduced our ability to think before generative AI arrived, making us more willing to use this new tool to avoid mentally demanding tasks once we had access to it,” Newport writes. “At the same time, the more we use AI in this manner, the more our cognitive fitness will continue to degrade.”

The loss of brain capacity has been a gradual decline but could have devastating effects, Newport said.

“A diminished ability to use our brains also has concerning personal effects. Thinking is what lets us make sense of information in a complicated world,” Newport said. “Thinking is also an engine for making sense of our lives and cultivating our moral imaginations.”

Newport distinguished between using AI to save time and assist in tedious tasks – such as formatting, document searching or verification – and using the technology to generate new material, utterly void of human effort. Writing should always be a human product, he said.

The authors of Gallup’s report agreed, recommending AI companies demonstrate “how AI can enhance rather than replace human talents.”

To fortify thinking and creativity, people should prioritize reading, writing, and physical distance from their phones, Newport said. These habits compare to physical exercise and dieting for the brain – after all, that organ is a muscle as well, he said.

“We need to stop filling our minds with the equivalent of digital Doritos,” Jay Van Bavel, a psychology professor at New York University, said in a post on X. “We made physical fitness and a healthy diet into a national movement, we should do the same for our brains.”