Cal Newport

You get all these kids knowing, oh, my ability to focus and sustain concentration is going to play a role in whether I can go to whatever school I want to go to, be it Georgetown or Dartmouth.

Now suddenly they're going to look at their phone like a liability.

They're going to look at TikTok like the thing that's going to keep them out of the Ivy League.

They're going to look at a book like

like the activity that's going to help set up my future.

And as a side effect, and this might be sort of leveraging a sort of crass instrumentality, but a side effect is these brains are going to be stronger and these are going to be more capable, more thriving, more successful citizens and individuals.

So this is a crisis, but it's also an opportunity.

I'll tell you what we don't need to do is say –

Well, AI is not going away, so why don't we just let all of our kids do everything with AI in school, and then are we high-tech?

Looking around, we're cool, right?

I'm going to put on my 90s-style skater chain wallet because I'm a 45-year-old, right?

I'm cool, right?

We're all cool.

We're all going to use AI, right?

It's going to be cool.

No, the whole point is to get smarter.

Having a machine do your work for you.

What does that have to do with getting smarter?

Which is the whole point of school.

So I appreciate that message.