Abstraction is a double-edged sword. While the tools we create expand what we can do and make life easier, they're simultaneously weakening the mental muscles that created them.
Welcome to Plain Sight by Wyzr, where we bring hidden patterns into plain sight. Every week, we explore stories and ideas that help us understand why we are the way we are.
The Abstraction Paradox
Last week, I watched a show where a mentalist performed some amazing memory tricks. He memorized entire decks of cards in minutes, recalled hundreds of random words, and could identify objects behind his back. Like most skeptics, I thought, “Yeah right, this ‘memory palace’ stuff is just a fancy show trick.”
Turns out it isn’t.
The story goes back to around 500 BC. A Greek poet named Simonides stepped outside during a banquet, and while he was gone, the roof collapsed and killed everyone inside. Bodies were mangled beyond recognition, but Simonides could identify every victim because he remembered exactly where each person had been sitting. From this tragedy he developed what we now call the “method of loci”. The memory palace technique that’s been the backbone of memory training for over 2,000 years.
In ancient India, students memorized the entire Vedas, including intricate word patterns that wove backward and forward like braids. The human brain, when properly trained, can do remarkable things. Our cognitive machinery, developed over millions of years, is brilliant at solving complex problems, spotting patterns, and building abstract models of our world. These abilities let us create tools that simplify complexity, from the humble abacus to smartphones.
What we often miss is, this simplification is also a double-edged sword. While these tools expand what we can do and make life easier, they’re simultaneously weakening the mental muscles that created them. Convenience breeds mental laziness.
The Seductive Surrender
We’ve surrounded ourselves with mental shortcuts that are just too convenient to resist. Why memorize phone numbers when your phone can save them for you? Why learn how to navigate when GPS can guide you? Each tool promises to free our minds for “higher thinking,” but do we really use our brains for this higher-order thinking? Not all of us.
Researchers call this the “Extended Mind.” Our thinking doesn’t just happen in our brains anymore—it extends into our devices. Our phones, GPS, and AI assistants aren’t just tools; they’ve become “active contributors to our thinking,” creating a “symbiotic relationship” where we outsource more and more mental work.
When we know we can look something up online anytime, our brains don’t bother storing that information. We begin to treat our digital devices as extensions of our memory. People who rely heavily on GPS show significantly worse spatial memory and understanding when navigating without help. Brain scans show that handwriting activates widespread neural networks across regions for movement, vision, sensory processing, and memory, while typing barely registers in these same areas.
This mental outsourcing fundamentally reshapes our cognitive architecture. Our brains, ever-efficient, recognize when mental effort isn’t necessary and adapt accordingly.
The AI Amplification
While cognitive offloading used to be a gentle slope, AI has turned it into a cliff. Recent studies consistently show strong negative correlations between AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, with frequent AI users showing diminished capacity to evaluate information and solve problems critically.
And here’s another thing to consider: AI is designed to be agreeable.
Unlike talking with a human who might challenge your ideas or push back, AI creates a “validation loop.” It’s basically a yes-man.
This dynamic fosters what researchers term “cognitive laziness”. A condition that “diminishes the inclination to engage in deep, reflective thinking.”
We start accepting AI responses without questioning them, stop challenging assumptions, and gradually lose the habit of developing our own thinking.
What’s worse is, today generative AI is becoming the default way of dealing with information. These tools make everything feel effortless, where quick access replaces deep understanding, and we mistake finding information for actually knowing something.
Perhaps most concerning is the atrophy of creativity. When AI systems can generate essays, art, and music in seconds, our incentive to develop these skills diminishes. The creative process of making mistakes and learning through the process gets replaced by prompt engineering and curation. This fundamentally changes our relationship with creation itself.
~
I’m not anti-tech—I stare at screens way too much myself. But I’ve become intentional about where I let tools do my thinking and where I make sure to do the mental heavy lifting myself.
I personally find reading books and journaling to be extremely helpful. Reading forces me to wrestle with difficult ideas and follow extended arguments. Journaling creates a slower, more deliberate thinking process without autocorrect or suggestions.
What about you?
Have you noticed your thinking becoming less rigorous in certain areas? How do you maintain your mental guardrails in the age of AI?
Write to us. We’d love to hear your take on coginitive laziness and feature the most compelling responses in a future edition.
What we’re reading this week
Liliput Land by Rama Bijapurkar
If you are interested in understanding the Indian consumer, this book dispels common myths, and sets realistic expectations. The rich on-ground observations will help you develop a deep understanding of the Indian market.
Hope you enjoyed this edition of Plain Sight.
Until next week,
Amlan
