It is a beautiful but also deeply sad scene. In the film «Amélie», the mother complains once again about Amélie's lack of independence. Her father dryly replies that this could also be due to her mother's excessive care – after all, she still squeezed toothpaste onto her daughter's toothbrush even though she was an adult. Comfort can be harmful – and with artificial intelligence and its technical possibilities, a new form of comfort is just gaining momentum.
In affluent countries such as Switzerland, most children today enjoy a comfortable everyday life. They experience less frustration and risk, have less free play and have to postpone their needs less than previous generations. This development has been confirmed by studies: a 2020 study by the University of Zurich showed that Swiss children spend on average 30 per cent less time in unstructured, self-determined activities than they did 20 years ago.
Parents usually want only the best for their children – but by cushioning their everyday lives, they often achieve the opposite. Research shows that when people hardly ever feel cold, have to make an effort, wait or live with uncertainty, and are exposed to fewer risks, their resilience and even their satisfaction decline.
A meta-analysis conducted by the University of Zurich in 2022 confirms that controlling parenting styles and excessive protection correlate with lower self-efficacy in children. The comfort zone apparently hinders the development of self-confidence, initiative and mental strength.
Abbreviations are human
And now AI is coming too. Artificial intelligence in programmes such as ChatGPT is the ultimate mental shortcut, allowing us to solve Einstein-level tasks in a matter of seconds.
ChatGPT is an AI-powered language assistant developed by the American software company OpenAI and has been publicly available since 2022. It is based on a large language model (LLM) that has been trained using billions of text examples. This enables it to recognise patterns in language, understand texts and generate new content – from maths solutions and essays to practical tips for everyday life. This quickly leads children to ask themselves: Why should I bother learning maths or writing essays when AI can solve many tasks faster than humans?
Pupils can only take advantage of the opportunities offered by AI if they themselves have the necessary skills.
Philippe Wampfler, secondary school teacher
People love shortcuts. Throughout human history, it has largely made perfect sense to seize opportunities to obtain food, shelter or warmth more quickly. But what do we lose when we use artificial intelligence to take one shortcut after another?
Stefan Wolter is an education economist at the University of Bern. The Swiss representative at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the field of education conducts research on equal opportunities, performance development and the influence of school and home on educational success.
AI has arrived in schools
«When children and young people overcome challenges while learning, they develop a whole range of valuable skills,» says Wolter (read the interview with Stefan Wolter here: «Parents who impose bans are heading for disaster»). The most important ones, in his opinion, are self-efficacy, frustration tolerance, risk assessment and perseverance.
«When AI solves many tasks in seconds, children are less willing to invest time and effort themselves,» he warns. The education researcher has conducted studies on AI usage behaviour. At secondary school level, around 70 per cent of pupils said they used AI on a weekly basis. In primary school, the figure was around 30 per cent. The data is from the year before last, and Wolter assumes that usage has increased significantly since then.
AI has arrived in schools – and it is here to stay. Philippe Wampfler is a secondary school teacher in Zurich and author of the book «L'école, c'est moi. Pupils at the heart of contemporary teaching», published in 2024.
At his school, the rate of AI usage is closer to 100 per cent. In programming, for example, AI helps to find errors in the code. «We have to teach these young people that they can only take advantage of the opportunities offered by AI if they have the skills themselves,» says Wampfler. He advocates trying out the techniques, especially as a teacher. «When I set a task, I try out how programmes such as ChatGPT and others solve it,» he says.
Impact on learning success
Large language models, as programmes such as ChatGPT are called, are improving at an incredible pace. Incorrect answers – known as hallucinations – are decreasing, results are becoming more accurate and operation is becoming easier. The result: we are letting them do more of the thinking – and thinking less ourselves.
Neuroscience studies show that cognitive abilities that are not regularly exercised decline measurably – similar to muscles that are not used physically. In 2020, a team of researchers found that frequent GPS use is associated with reduced activity in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for spatial memory.
The role of parents must be to offer their children opportunities and challenges – this strengthens their self-efficacy.
Michael Easter, author and coach
Initial studies have been conducted on the impact of AI on learning success. Researchers at the Wharton School of Business analysed the maths learning of 1,000 young people at US high schools. They found that access to artificial intelligence «can harm educational outcomes». Not only was long-term learning success lower in the group that was allowed to use ChatGPT without restrictions, but these children and young people also did not notice that they were learning less as a result of using AI – after all, the results were correct.
The researchers' conclusion: at least for the time being, traditional learners will develop more skills in the long term. Education researcher Stefan Wolter says: «We cannot even begin to estimate what AI and the programmes that exist today or will eventually come onto the market will do to life and learning.»
More unreasonable demands are needed
How can we prevent excessive analogue and digital comfort from harming children and young people? In «The Comfort Crisis», US author and coach Michael Easter describes what the conveniences of the modern world can do to people. While researching his bestseller, Easter stumbled across a statistic that changed his life. He read that only two per cent of people take the stairs when they also have the option of using an escalator.
Easter thus became an expert on living without harmful comforts. His credo: more exercise; putting up with boredom, risk and frustration from time to time – and, if necessary, consciously creating challenges. Anyone who does not feel physically challenged during the day should pack two full water bottles in their rucksack for their walk. Not as provisions, but as ballast.
Easter calls this «discomfort by design» – something that would also help the youngest children. «The task of parents must be to offer children opportunities and challenges,» he writes. In other words, to create experiences in which children achieve a goal through their own actions and thereby strengthen their sense of self-efficacy – even if the task seems challenging at first.
What heavy water bottles are for the body, consciously set learning hurdles can be for the mind – which, of course, requires the support of parents or teachers. Instead of letting ChatGPT solve the entire maths problem, you could just ask it to give you a solution approach – and then work out the rest yourself. When writing an essay, you could get keywords from the AI, but formulate the text yourself. In this way, AI becomes a training partner rather than a convenient shortcut.
Personalised teaching
High school teacher Philippe Wampfler readily agrees with Michael Easter's assessment: «School is often discomfort by design,» he says. For many children and young people, school means constant overload. Studies have shown that pupils who regularly have to overcome moderate challenges in class develop a higher level of frustration tolerance and perseverance. But constant excessive demands do not produce these results, says Wampfler.
He therefore advocates for more individualised teaching, as he outlines in his book. Places need to be created where pupils can engage with the topics when they are ready to do so. «Young people are willing to undertake an enormous number of learning processes if these are appropriate for their development,» he says.
Wampfler also does not believe that AI will make school and learning impossible. «AI cannot read for me,» he says. «As teachers, we have to convey that it is fun to have expertise.» However, he also admits that this is a challenging task from a didactic point of view. And: «We cannot yet estimate what effect it will have on today's 15-year-olds if they let AI solve many tasks for them.»
A major challenge
Education researcher Stefan Wolter also sees major challenges ahead for teachers – especially when it comes to motivating children. «If you can only use your mind with AI, then according to philosopher Immanuel Kant, you would be in a state of self-imposed immaturity – but it's hard to motivate an eight-year-old with this spectre,» says Wolter with a laugh.
He advocates distinguishing between different ways of using AI: «If I just enter my homework into ChatGPT and that's it, my afternoon is free, then that doesn't lead to any learning success,» says Wolter. He calls this type of use «substitution».
Children can use AI to get answers to questions they don't dare ask in class.
Stefan Wolter, education researcher
However, he also sees many opportunities in connection with AI. «We have always assumed that the empathy of the teacher and interpersonal relationships are irreplaceable for learning. But that can also prove to be an obstacle to the learning process,» says Wolter. For example, children type questions into the search engine at home that they don't dare to ask in class for fear of being laughed at. AI can help children learn things that they would otherwise miss in class.
He also sees opportunities in the tutoring programmes that already exist, such as ChatGPT. These do not offer solutions, but help those seeking advice to find them. «It's basically tutoring,» he says, which also opens up wonderful opportunities, for example for children from low-income families.
Teachers as coaches
Despite all the concerns about technology, we must not forget that «our current approach has failed completely.» Not all children and young people are learning what is specified in the curriculum. According to Wolter, 20 to 25 per cent of each age cohort in Switzerland leave school without the most basic skills, meaning they are practically illiterate.
In order to use AI to our advantage, the teaching profession must undergo a complete transformation. It must move away from imparting content and towards a kind of coaching role, mediating between people and technology, making diagnoses, motivating and paving the way to the right approaches. «We are reaching a higher level of pedagogy and didactics,» he says. This is an incredible challenge.
Comfort opponent Michael Easter gives parents another tip: children will not be happy if you try to make them smile all the time. Instead, you should ask yourself what children need in order to become resilient adults.
