Technology, AI have made us hasty readers – and that's a big problem

Research has raised concerns about how AI use and digital habits may affect learning and attention. A study of 583 people aged 13 to 25 in Singapore and Australia found that 68 per cent reported difficulty focusing. Singapore's NTU and research agency Research Network conducted the study in collaboration with ListenLabs.ai, a United States-based AI platform. The findings, released in July 2025, also reported that 65 per cent of students worried about the long-term impact of their social media use on school, work and their well-being. Prof Annabel Chen, a clinical neuropsychologist and director of the Centre for Research and Development in Learning at NTU, said that technology has weakened people's ability to read deeply in several ways. Digital environments have fragmented people's attention and encouraged "media multitasking", as notifications, rapid task-switching and competing digital information interrupt sustained attention on any one task, she added. In an era where information is easily available with a tap of a screen, knowing what is true or false is crucial. Assoc Prof Loh Chin Ee, from the English Language and Literature Department at NIE, said: "Given the amount of online information we have to process daily, a literate person would have to be able to read and process both print and digital texts."

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