Stanford University teaches communication skills. We are Silicon Valley parents, coaches, and consultants. For years, we have been concerned about the decline in writing and speaking skills among young people. Lately, I've noticed that I'm losing these skills at an accelerating rate each month.
Communication skills are essential for building healthy relationships, maintaining mental health, promoting civic engagement, and building a successful career. And while today's teenagers are the most connected generation in history, they are also the least prepared to communicate with depth, confidence, and empathy.
The environment in which students can develop their communication skills is collapsing. Social media crowds out face-to-face interactions. Memes replace conversation. And much of our test-based education system emphasizes memorization and standardized testing over fundamental skills like storytelling. Storytelling is a core cognitive and social function that shapes our identities, connects our communities, and distinguishes our species.
In short, young people are at risk of losing the communication skills that connect us. The bright side is that simple measures can help reverse the situation.
How we got here: Lockdowns, likes, and LLMs
During the pandemic, in-person interactions among American teenagers have plummeted. In their place came widespread texting, social media, and in late 2022, AI companions. Once these tools became the norm, real-world communication declined precipitously.
Teens in the United States spend an average of five hours per day on social media. Almost half are always online. Likes, streaks, and emojis may feel like connections, but it's face-to-face contact that builds meaningful intimacy and strengthens communication skills.
One study found that nearly 9 out of 10 U.S. students aged 14 to 22 use AI for their schoolwork. Students can type complex questions into chatbots and receive sophisticated (but not necessarily authentic, accurate, or nuanced) answers in seconds. As a result, many students have come to expect life's questions and challenges to be answered immediately, without first-person research or thought.
Studies have shown that using chatbots reduces mental effort, reduces brain activity, and reduces activity in areas of the brain responsible for memory and creativity. This usually leads to unoriginal work, decreased self-awareness, difficulty remembering information, and increased reliance on bots.
What happens after a student loses mental stamina? We worry that young people will lack the enthusiasm to form bonds with others. They will face greater mental health issues, withdraw from their communities, and struggle professionally.
If we don't rekindle our communication skills, the “loneliness epidemic'' of the 2020s could extend into the “century of loneliness.''
Solutions from the front lines
We live and work in the heart of the tech-crazy San Francisco Bay Area. The use of AI is further advanced there than in the United States as a whole. Students here use AI to write college applications, summarize novels, get nutrition advice, and diagnose depression. Some elementary school students begin taking AI classes in fifth grade.
Perhaps because our region is on the cutting edge, we are already hearing from young people worried about their declining communication skills. For the first time, students are seeking help to regain their declining writing and speaking skills.
Here's what we recommend:
- Take pride in your ideas. Don't replace your original idea with AI. Let the bot finish your second or third draft. Use bots as collaborators.
- Join the community: Connect with others and refine your voice with shared screen-free activities. Participate in drama, debate, and improv clubs.
- Get a job: Manage the coffee shop's breakfast rush. Defuse customer conflicts in retail stores. Work with people of different ages, backgrounds, perspectives, and native languages. A customer service job will improve your resume, empathy, and patience (unlike anonymous interactions with like-minded followers online).
For teachers: Instead of limiting the use of AI (which is wasteful), prioritize intelligent learning. process Beyond traditional academics output. We frequently conduct in-class written and oral exercises that require coherent thinking and logical communication. We grade students based on the quality of their analysis, synthesis, and justification, not on take-home essays or simple calculations.
We also recommend that teachers “cold call” students, or randomly select students to answer questions without students raising their hands. Students regularly say that fear of performing poorly in front of their classmates motivates them to absorb the lesson and form a strong opinion rather than simply completing an assigned reading or essay.
And if we want our children to develop good communication skills as adults, parents need to model intentional presence. Stop multitasking. Please keep your phone on silent while eating. Reinforce your own nonverbal behaviors (making eye contact, using gestures and body language). It verbalizes how to come up with ideas, resolve conflicts, negotiate solutions, and advocate for yourself, showing kids the thought process in real time. Share and discuss articles, podcasts, and books to ritualize dialogue rather than passive consumption.
Social media and AI are not going away. In fact, technology can greatly enhance young people's learning and careers, provided they don't lose their writing, speaking, and thinking skills in the process.
Communication defines how we think, connect, learn, work and live together. Without it, we risk raising a generation unequipped with the collaboration, leadership, and critical thinking necessary for civic life.
