The AI Risk That Nobody is Talking About: How Artificial Intelligence Could Worsen the Mental Health Crisis
- Aug 23
- 7 min read
In recent years, conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) have largely centered on its ability to replace jobs and revolutionize industries. With automation reshaping the workforce and affecting millions, the economic implications of these advancements have sparked widespread debate. However, an equally critical yet often overlooked concern is the impact of AI and omnipresent technology on our mental health and wellbeing. While the efficiency and connectivity offered by digital tools are undeniable, they come with some hidden costs that deserve just as much attention as the economic implications.
As we immerse ourselves in a world where nearly every interaction is mediated by screens, the toll on our mental state becomes clearer. Notifications, social media, and AI-curated content keep us perpetually connected but also perpetually distracted and overstimulated. The growth of Internet and social media have not just led to an explosion of misinformation, they have contributed, often directly, to the world's growing mental health crisis. And these issues will only get worse with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
The Mental Cost of Digital Connectivity
The pervasive need for constant connectivity has introduced profound challenges to mental health. The pressure to remain digitally engaged at all times often leads to heightened anxiety and stress. Social media, while a tool for connection, can paradoxically create feelings of isolation. The polished and curated lives displayed on platforms often trigger comparisons, leaving users with a sense of inadequacy, loneliness, or "not measuring up."
Even if you are one of those people who doesn't care what your friends are doing and simply enjoys scrolling, this isn't doing wonders for your mental health either. Scrolling is addictive because it induces dopamine, but having so much so easily can dysregulate your nervous system and give you dopamine overload, essentially making you desensitized to it until you become depressed, a phenomena scientists have dubbed "doomscrolling".
The sheer volume of digital notifications further strains mental health. Each ping, buzz, or alert demands attention, fracturing focus and disrupting the ability to be present. This constant barrage trains the brain to expect interruptions, making it harder to concentrate or relax. In fact, a study showed that that the attention span of the average American is only one third what it was 20 years ago. Many tech enthusiasts pride themselves on staying informed, but at what cost?
Artificial Intelligence Will Come at an Even Greater Cost
AI's reach and potential are nearly limitless. Since the dawn of the Internet era, we have been able to find knowledge and content quickly and easily. Complex algorithms were developed to quickly show us content that gave us our best dopamine hit.
Even though we are still in the early stages of the AI revolution, it's easy to see where things are headed by what AI can already do now. Soon, not only can the algorithms find you the existing content best suited for your dopamine hit, but it will also soon be able to create personalized content just for you to give you that dopamine hit.
Misinformation spreading via social media through misleading photos and conspiracy theory laden captions have already entrenched itself into the public sphere, and it's hard to see this problem not getting a lot worse with artificial intelligence's ever improving ability to create realistic images and voice overs. The risks AI pose are not limited to just our mental health, but also to the fabric of reality that holds society together, greater increasing the polarization society has gone through over the past few decades.
And the problems that will arise with AI don't stop there. Internet use has already changed our brain chemistry, and since humans are "use it or lose it" lifeforms, the rise of AI will replace the need for many humans to use many of our cognitive abilities, similar to how when the invention of the steam engine gave us the automobile, trains, and other forms of mechanized transportation, many of us "lost" the ability to run a marathon that was relatively common amongst our ancestors.
How We Prepare for the AI Age
Even with all the problems highlighted above, there's no need to prepare your doomsday bunker quite yet. What if I told you that there is a relatively easy way for us to enjoy the various benefits and conveniences artificial intelligence has to offer, while mitigating most, if not all, of the negative side effects on our mental health that come with it?
You'd probably think I'm trying to sell you something for a nominal fee, but the solution is something that can be done completely free of charge.
Riddle me this, how is it exactly that most of us lost the ability to run a marathon when almost all of our ancestors had this ability and used it for survival? I'm sure you all know the answer, its simple, the growth of mechanized transport made running unnecessary, and since we didn't use it, we lose it. Modern marathon runners are able to maintain the skill of running a marathon that pretty much all of our ancestors had, while still enjoying the conveniences of mechanized transport, simply by dedicating a portion of their time to practicing running.
The age of automobiles and office work has made it, not just helpful, but necessary for us to actively try to exercise our bodies to maintain our physical health. In the same way, the age of the Internet and AI has made it, not just helpful, but necessary for us to actively exercise our minds to maintain our mental health.
There are of course, many ways to do this, whether it be recreational mental puzzles like Sudoku, or brain teaser apps like Lumosity, but few are as comprehensive and all around helpful to counteracting the mental health issues of the digital and AI age than the ancient practice of meditation.
Why Meditation is Needed to Maintain Our Mental Health
In today's fast-paced digital world, integrating meditation into our lives and into society is more crucial than ever. Practices like meditation, have become essential for navigating a world saturated with technology. As social media platforms and AI increasingly shape our relationships and perceptions, putting aside time for mental peace is no longer optional—it is a necessity.
Just as the automobile era brought about a greater focus on physical fitness to offset sedentary lifestyles, today’s digital age demands a proactive approach to mental fitness.
But why meditation and not some other way to stay mentally fit? Well, look at all the things discussed before about what social media, the Internet and AI have led to: greater rates of depression, anxiety, a shortening of attention span, and increased polarization.
What are the things meditation helps reduce? Depression, anxiety, the shortening of attention spans, and increased polarization.
Reducing Depression and Anxiety
Decades of research has demonstrated that meditation is quite potent at preventing or even treating depression and anxiety, often doing so in a way that tackles changes in the brain at its source.
Research has demonstrated that meditation has promising results when it comes to treating people with major depressive disorder, and has been shown to be an effective way to reduce stress and anxiety.
By practicing meditation, we reduce the dopamine swings and anxiety that come with the digital world. And by training ourselves to be more mindful of our actions, we become more aware and can prevent or even learn to stop ourselves from the cycle of ruminating on things that drives us into a depressive episode.
Enhancing Focus and Concentration
In a world filled with distractions—from constantly being bombarded with up next suggestions to social media reply notifications—maintaining focus on anything that isn't short form content seems impossible.
Meditation, basically by definition, trains the mind to increase its focus and concentration. Meditation helps preserve or even lengthen our attention spans as doomscrolling and reels constantly work to shorten it.
In fact, meditation is so effective at improving attention, it is often prescribed to people with ADHD to help manage their symptoms, and has been shown to increase dopamine levels in practitioners, a pretty promising result when you consider that scientists attribute most cases of ADHD to deficiencies in dopamine in the first place.
Although it is not recommended to fully replace pharmacological treatments of ADHD with meditation, the fact meditation is effective at treating a full blown attention disorder, suggests meditation can likely handle any chipping away at your attention span that social media or AI may do.
Promoting Harmony
An often-overlooked benefit of meditation is not just what it can do for our individual mental health, but what it can do for the health of society at large. It is no secret that polarization has been on the rise in most democracies around the world, particularly the United States.
This problem is only being amplified by the misinformation that is being spread on social media platforms, reinforced by its algorithms showing us increasingly polarized content, and the rise of artificial intelligence which just magnifies these problems. At this point, it seems like there is no end in sight, and that we are destined to tear each other to shreds before things get any better.
But meditation serves as a light at the end of this increasingly dark tunnel. Meditation techniques like loving-kindness have been shown in clinical studies to increase empathy in practitioners, a vital emotion to develop if we want to cool down the polarization in society.
Even more directly, an 8-week study on Brits has shown meditation to have a direct and strong effect in reducing political polarization outright. Participants showed greater empathy and understanding for those who disagreed with them, and greater regulation of adversarial tendencies. Pretty much exactly the kind thing everyone agrees we need more of in today's political climate.
Embracing the Age of Artificial Intelligence with Mindfulness
As we step into a new era dominated Internet connectivity, and now AI, it’s more crucial than ever to prioritize our mental health. The digital age brings remarkable benefits, but it also introduces challenges that can strain our minds and disrupt society. Meditation offers a powerful counterbalance—a tool to help us navigate this transition, enjoy the advantages of AI, and safeguard against its potential downsides.
In a world where screens dominate our routines and complex content can be generated in seconds, finding moments of stillness through meditation is essential. It’s not just about individual well-being; it’s about ensuring society remains functional and thriving. Just as the widespread adoption of exercise reshaped societal norms—improving health, reducing strain on healthcare systems, and fostering a happier, more productive population—meditation has the potential to do the same for mental fitness.
To truly harness the transformative potential of AI without deepening the mental health crisis fueled by the social media era, we must make meditation a mainstream practice. By embedding the importance of mental fitness into our culture, much like we did with physical fitness in the automobile age, we can mitigate the challenges ahead. Our mental fitness is just as essential as our physical fitness in this new frontier of artificial intelligence—because, let’s face it, it’s not just important; it’s indispensable.
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