Ella Harry | Head Editor
October 10, 2025
Recently, scrolling on TikTok feels akin to entering a full-blown warzone. Whether on issues of politics or pop culture, people online are constantly divided, treating comment sections as mechanisms of letting off excess steam from their daily lives. However, upon further inspection, there often appears to be little nuance present in these very publicly conveyed opinions.
It seems as though we have entered an era of online discourse where little is conveyed outside of left and right, right and wrong, black and white. Comments either regurgitate the opinions of the original person who posted or sharply oppose this view by restating the content found in a post with the exact opposite idea. But where, in all of these arguments, is the presence of a gray area that is much needed in society? And what will happen as a result of the loss of this critical thinking?
Well, I have a rough idea. Coinciding with the rise of artificial intelligence, this mass loss of critical thinking ability comes at a time when ChatGPT and similar mechanisms provide a single, definitive answer to virtually any question in an instant. With AI handling the heavy lifting on problems or queries that require an excess of thinking, people have gotten used to accepting the first answer given to them by a bot, rather than analyzing the millions of answers likely present just beyond the surface in their own brains.
Eventually, the brain becomes accustomed to the effortlessness that comes with accepting the first solution provided. People’s opinions begin to rely more heavily on the initial ideology presented to them, and algorithms only continue to feed into this one-sided ideal. With these echo chambers present online, the polarization of opinions on practically any matter has only been exacerbated. Therefore, when someone is confronted with a differing opinion in a social media comment section, the experience is jarring.
Suddenly, those with contrasting opinions from our own are the enemy, and expressing a view different from the mass consensus under a post is treated similarly to a crime. Even under content about a new television series or an album, people are largely unwilling to listen to someone else’s perspective. Or, when a user attempts to explain their viewpoint further in the comments, they are met with harsh criticism and floods of comments along the lines of “I’m not reading all of that.” This unwillingness to engage in discourse online creates countless missed opportunities to establish a new perspective or make diverse connections, opportunities that should be constantly taken advantage of on platforms that allow us to interact with people across the globe. These connections, SCHS senior Myla Pert shared, are “so important in keeping people thinking critically.”
In a world that feeds into this division, it has never been more essential to fight the narrow-mindedness overtaking social media, as well as daily life. Without nuance in thought, humans would easily fall into a pattern of accepting the first available solution. This mechanism becomes harmful when those in power take advantage of such division. In the future, we must try to keep our minds open and perspectives broad by fighting this wave of one-sided thinking. While it is undeniable that AI can serve as a helpful tool in certain aspects of life, it becomes “an issue when people start taking advantage of and relying on it,” as SCHS senior Natalie Deyhimy said. Going forward, we must be highly intentional when interacting with artificial intelligence. We must not miss the chance to engage with a real, living human being whenever available to protect the intellectualism that separates us from robots. Without it, who knows what the future of humanity will hold?
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