Have you ever watched a young child on a device when a notification pops up? They immediately swipe it away without hesitation. They recognize that it is a distraction from what they are trying to do.

This natural reaction stands out to me because, without the satisfaction of curiosity, a baby conveniently avoids the clickbait. This feels like a profound revelation in light of my own desire to control my time. Like many people, I don’t want technology deciding what stimulates my brain or where my time goes. I want to decide.

Over the years, I have watched social media become increasingly difficult to simply get in, do what I came to do, and get out. I may go on Facebook to post something, and suddenly I am consuming information in 10-, 20- and 30-second pieces. Before I know it, I haven’t completed what I went there to do.

Similarly, I have recently found myself setting boundaries with the various forms of AI that I use. I have one particular platform that I notice attempts to complete my thoughts or predict my interests. It happens so frequently that I have found myself setting timers to contain my use and developing templated phrases to help me get what I need and get out.

I use AI, and I see where it can be very beneficial. This is not all-or-nothing for me. AI exists, and I don’t think the answer is simply not to use it.

What I am interested in is preserving my creative functioning, my mental acuity and my ability to withstand intellectual discomfort.

There is something to be said for sitting with the discomfort of not knowing.

When I was in my doctoral program, I was exposed to words and scholarly discourse that I had never encountered before. At times, I thought, why can’t they just say this in a way that everybody can understand? Sometimes it even felt elitist.

But grappling with unfamiliar material stretched me. It required me to go and read, gather new information, and equip myself to engage in discourse above my current level of knowledge. My dissertation taught me how much I don’t know.

It reminds me of earning a black belt. You get that first-degree black belt after everything you went through, and then you realize there are nine more degrees. You suddenly know how much you don’t know.

That intellectual friction matters.

If something is unfamiliar, there is friction in having to grapple with the lack of knowledge. It is uncomfortable because your brain has to work in a way it does not usually work. But that discomfort is not necessarily bad. Sometimes it is the work.

Today, AI can remove some of that discomfort almost immediately. Something that might take me five minutes to think through or write can take 15 seconds with AI. If I always use AI to eliminate that process, what happens to my ability to do it myself?

Emerging research on cognitive offloading is beginning to raise that same question. Some studies suggest that people who use AI primarily to obtain answers may show less persistence once the assistance is removed, while people who use it for hints or clarification may remain more engaged. That difference matters to me.

We have already seen versions of cognitive offloading with other technology. Thirty years ago, I knew everybody’s phone number. Today, I know very few because my phone stores them.

The same thing happens with GPS. I have always said, don’t depend on that map so much that if it goes out, you are in trouble. You need to know how to get around. Look around. Pick up clues.

If someone drives me somewhere, I may arrive successfully without remembering how we got there because I wasn’t doing the navigating. It is almost like someone drove me there with a blindfold on. I arrived, but I don’t know where I am.

AI can do something similar with our thinking.

It can allow us to arrive at conclusions without understanding the reasoning behind them. And if I didn’t actually do the thinking, I may not remember what I did, how I got there, or be able to do it again without the tool.

I love thinking about thinking. The first time I heard the term metacognition, I was excited. I want to know what I am thinking, why I am thinking it, and how I was influenced to think it.

I don’t want to lose the “aha” moments. I don’t want to live in a world absent manual thinking.

Sometimes we need to leave the blank page blank a little longer.

I like getting my thoughts out first. I like typing because physically seeing the words helps me connect with the ideas. What matters is that my brain is making the connections across my own experiences, memories, reasoning and knowledge. Then I can use AI to help edit, organize, research, challenge my thinking or identify problems with my work.

I also think we have to verify. AI can give us information confidently, and that doesn’t mean it is right. It hallucinates. It can make things up. So I believe we need to go back to primary sources. Treat AI like a stranger: receive the information, but verify it.

For me, the question is not simply whether I use AI. The question is how I use it and what I am allowing it to do for me.

There are mundane things I don’t need to spend my highest level of thinking on. In clinical work, for example, I don’t think a therapist needs to spend unnecessary cognitive energy trying to perfect clinical phraseology. Use AI to help with language, then spend that time thinking about what will actually help the client.

But I don’t want AI deciding what I think. I don’t want it making my connections for me, interpreting everything for me, or becoming my default mechanism whenever thinking gets uncomfortable.

Our ability to free-think is our value. Our ability to create is our value.

So maybe the goal is not to stop using AI. Maybe it is to become much more conscious of when we are using it, why we are using it and what parts of ourselves we are willing to hand over to it.

Don’t let AI drive you. Drive AI.

These are the kinds of conversations we need to continue having as a community, particularly as we think about how technology is shaping the world our children are growing up in. I invite you to join us at the 4th Annual Inland Empire Black Parent Summit on Saturday, October 17, at Cal State San Bernardino. This year’s speakers include Dr. William A. Smith, Donnell Layne of Moreno Valley College, and other educators and community leaders who will engage families around education, wellness, belonging and the success of Black children.

The Summit is free and open to the community. Learn more and register at www.BlackParentSummit.org.