Losing focus as a skill is something I see with every batch of new students. It’s not just LLMs, almost every app and startup is competing for the same limited attention from every user.

What LLMs have done for most of my students is remove all the barriers to an answer they once had to work for. It’s easy to get hooked on fast answers and forget to ask why something works. That said, I think LLMs can support exploration—often beyond what Googling ever did—if we approach them the right way.

I’ve seen moments where students pushed back on a first answer and uncovered deeper insights, but only because they chose to dig. The real danger isn’t the tool, it’s forgetting how to use it thoughtfully.

I feel that respecting the focus of others is also an important skill.

If I'm pulled 27 different ways. Then when I finally get around to another engineer’s question “I need help” is a demand for my synchronous time and focus. Versus “I’m having problems with X, I need to Y, can you help me Z” could turn into a chat, or it could mean I’m able to deliver the needed information at once and move on. Many people these days don’t even bother to write questions. They write statements and expect you to infer the question from the statement.

On the flip side, a thing we could learn more from LLMs is how to give a good response by explaining our reasoning out loud. Not “do X” but instead “It sounds like you want to W, and that’s blocked by Y. That is happening because of Z. To fix it you need to X because it …”

> It’s easy to get hooked on fast answers and forget to ask why something works

This is really a tragedy because the current technology is arguably one of the best things in existence for explaining "why?" to someone in a very personalized way. With application of discipline from my side, I can make the LLM lecture me until I genuinely understand the underlying principles of something. I keep hammering it with edge cases and hypotheticals until it comes back with "Exactly! ..." after reiterating my current understanding.

The challenge for educators seems the same as it has always been - How do you make the student want to dig deeper? What does it take to turn someone into a strong skeptic regarding tools or technology?

I'd propose the use of hallucinations as an educational tool. Put together a really nasty scenario (i.e., provoke a hallucination on purpose on behalf of the students that goes under their radar). Let them run with a misapprehension of the world for several weeks. Give them a test or lab assignment regarding this misapprehension. Fail 100% of the class on this assignment and have a special lecture afterward. Anyone who doesn't "get it" after this point should probably be filtered out anyways.

In a way, I think it shows why "superfluous" things like sports and art are so important in school. In those activities, there are no quick answers. You need to persist through the initial learning curve and slow physical adaptation just to get baseline competency. You're not going to get a violin to stop sounding like a dying cat unless you accept that it's a gradual focused process.

> Losing focus as a skill is something I see with every batch of new students.

Gaining focus as a skill is something to work on with every batch of new students

We're on the same page. I'm turning that around to say: let's remember focus isn't something we're naturally born with, it has to be built. Worked on hard. People coming to that task are increasingly damaged/injured imho.

This is my constant concern these days and it makes me wonder if grading needs to change in order to alleviate some of the pressure to get the right answer so that students can focus on how.