Writing an essay with ChatGPT: what an EEG study did and didn't find (2025)

54 people wrote essays over several months with ChatGPT, a search engine, or no tools. Brain connectivity was weakest with the LLM and strongest unaided, and the LLM group reported the least ownership and often couldn't quote what they'd written minutes earlier. Directly relevant to anyone who believes writing is how we think.

Where I'm less sure: by the authors' own account, it's a preprint that wasn't peer-reviewed at release, with a small, local sample and a single essay task. The authors explicitly ask people not to frame it as "brain rot", and we shouldn't either.

Question: If doing the writing yourself is what builds understanding, where do you draw the line on AI help in your own notes and writing?