With the rise of AI websites and social media used by kids of all ages throughout the United States a concern is growing among parents and educators. Different websites such as ChatGPT, Tik Tok, and Quillbot (along with many others) are causing students to never challenge themselves or ideas they may have. Some students are now always searching for an answer from someone else’s work and never finding the answers by themselves.
A faulty work ethic among students all starts back in March of 2020. The shutdown of schools due to COVID-19 had students and teachers alike all stuck in their rooms on Google Meet and Skype for hours on end. With all of this time being spent at home, students became distracted by what was around them such as their phones, TV’s, and gaming consoles.
As the school year progressed students would exploit the system by learning that they could lie about their bad internet and they could have blacked out, blurred, or frozen screens so that they wouldn’t have to participate in the class. So, because students rarely paid attention during online learning when teachers would assign homework or papers as a grade, most students would have to resort to the internet for answers. Since most teachers had to go online to teach and post their work, most students would be able to find a multitude of websites such Brainly, Quizlet, and Course Hero to find answers to their assigned homework.
Tik Tok is an app that allows users to create short form content for anyone to enjoy. The key word in this definition is “short form.” Even though short form videos aren’t new and have been around since 2013 with Vine, what makes Tik Tok different is it’s mix of a precise algorithm and short form videos.
These videos, which are mainly made and seen by kids, actually shorten their attention spans by 50 percent. Users of the app have stated that videos over a minute have become “stressful to watch. With the constant barrage of information and entertainment available at kids’ fingertips, it’s easy for them to become addicted to the instant gratification provided by these videos. This information can prove that with a loss of attention span some kids cannot pay attention in school and then it forces them to use the internet to find answers for homework, essays, and tests.
At the start of the 2022 school year students and teachers are finally back from summer break and both are still feeling the effects of COVID-19. Then, in November a revolutionary website was put on the internet…ChatGPT. ChatGPT had spread like wildfire all over Tik Tok and Youtube and the videos show what the website can do such as write songs, create recipes, and write papers.
Then it spreads into schools enabling students to use this tool to help them in the short term to write essays, but what this does is hurt their work ethic because now they have something writing for them and they don’t have to challenge themselves or ideas to write essays or even answer simple homework problems.
With the endless amounts of websites being at the disposal of many students in the United States, a work ethic among these students is being lost because everything can be done for them. These websites also pair along with social media sites such as Tik Tok which are shrinking the attention spans of students. COVID, AI, and Tik Tok all seamlessly connect to a decrease in student work ethic, an increase in laziness, and some students never learning the ability to create their own thoughts and ideas but constantly using these “tools” to just aid them in the short-term and they will never be able to develop certain skills that create a good student or worker.