When AI Thinks for Us: Unveiling the Cognitive and Social Toll of ChatGPT Over-Reliance

Key Findings

• — 45 regular ChatGPT users were interviewed about academic, professional and social use.
• — Cognitive effects reported: reduced critical thinking, weaker memory retention and heightened cognitive dependence on the assistant.
• — Psychological effects reported: loss of autonomy, diminished intrinsic motivation and emotional attachment to ChatGPT.
• — Social effects reported: reduced real-world interaction and isolation.
• — A counter-pattern appears in the same sample: several participants used the assistant as a scaffold for creativity and reflective learning rather than a substitute for thinking.
• — The author's recommendation is critical AI literacy and self-regulated use rather than restriction.

Methodology Notes

Qualitative interviews with 45 self-selected regular users; all outcomes are participant self-report, with no cognitive testing, no comparison group and no longitudinal measurement, so this documents experienced dependence rather than measured cognitive change. Single author. Published in Applied Cognitive Psychology 2026-04-23, DOI 10.1002/acp.70205; the publisher page is paywalled from this box, so the record was verified from the Crossref and OpenAlex metadata and the publisher-deposited abstract.

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