When Technology Rewires the Brain:
A Grandfather’s Perspective
Living Through a Shift
As a grandfather of one very new teenager and three soon-to-be teens, I cannot ignore the transformation I see taking place. Although I do not have contact with my family (for varied and sundry reasons), I am disturbed by what is right before my eyes across the globe. Today’s youth are growing up with screens as their constant companions. What I once knew as long afternoons of outdoor play, neighborhood friendships, and unstructured imagination has been replaced by endless scrolling, gaming, and digital connection.
While I know we are long, long past the days when we played outside until the streetlights came on, finding a group of neighborhood or school friends playing would be difficult to find. Mind you, there are groups and groups of teens everywhere, but they have their faces buried in a screen. They don’t even talk to each other.
To me, the negative effects are painfully evident. These children—our children—are simply not living differently. They are becoming different. Forces are reshaping their brains we too often treat casually: the smartphone, and what I unapologetically call the COVID SCAMDEMIC. With schools shut down in some places for more than two years, our children have been set back. Follow the science was the government’s mantra. We now know it was a “follow the science experiment.” We’ve been totally gaslit by our own government. And, to our children’s dismay.
The Smartphone Era and Its Silent Toll
When the iPhone was first introduced, it was hailed as revolutionary. Sure, there were mobile phones for a long time. I even had one that was carried in a bag and plugged into the car lighter. But the iPhone changed everything-it was revolutionary. And it was. Few innovations have so quickly embedded themselves into every pocket, purse, and palm. While I still call the mobile phone the “electronic tether,” by the early 2010s, the smartphone wasn’t just a tool—it had become the default elective appendage for youth. Social interaction shifted from playgrounds and sidewalks to apps and feeds.
But what has it cost us? The evidence is no longer anecdotal. Depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide have skyrocketed among young people, particularly teenage girls. What once were isolated statistics now form a disturbing pattern. And while experts debate correlation and causation, anyone paying attention can see the link: the smartphone is not just influencing behavior—it is rewiring identity.
The brain thrives on human touch, conversation, physical movement, and natural light. Yet today’s youth live in a constant comparison culture. Their self-worth rises and falls with likes, followers, and the curated perfection of others. The ego has been either inflated or decimated by what happens with the next click. What I see in my grandchildren’s generation is not simply distraction—it is distortion. Their very ability to process reality is being reshaped by an endless digital mirror.
I thank God Almighty that their parents knew enough to keep the digital eco-sphere far away from them and minimize their exposure.
The COVID SCAMDEMIC and the “New Brain”
As if the smartphone weren’t enough, the COVID SCAMDEMIC accelerated this rewiring at breakneck speed. For years, children were isolated, locked indoors, cut off from schools, playgrounds, and face-to-face human connection. Whether one believes in the necessity of those policies or not, the outcome is undeniable: young minds adapted to isolation and screen dependency.
What alarms me most is not just the academic loss or social regression—it is the normalization of digital living. During those years, the screen became school, friendship, entertainment, and escape all at once. Even after restrictions were lifted, many young people never returned to the physical rhythms of life. Why go outside when your world is delivered through Wi-Fi? With the evident decay of society, children no longer spend their days playing ball, skipping rope, or games of hide-and-seek. They’re staring into a digital device.
This has created, in my eyes, an entirely different kind of brain—the digital generation brain. One that is overstimulated yet underdeveloped. One that can navigate apps with ease but struggles with eye contact, patience, or sustained attention. It is a brain designed for the dopamine hits of likes and notifications, not for the resilience that comes from climbing trees, riding bikes, or solving problems face-to-face.
What We’ve Lost in the Trade
I sometimes wonder what my grandchildren’s generation will miss most when they look back. Will they even know the freedom of boredom? Will they remember the joy of building forts in the woods or improvising games on a hot summer day? Will they understand the subtle skill of conversation without emojis or the patience of waiting without distraction?
Executives, leaders, and decision-makers should take note: this is not just a family issue—it is a societal one. The workforce of tomorrow is being shaped by these habits today. Creativity, resilience, and collaboration—the very traits organizations prize—cannot flourish in brains trained to swipe at the first sign of discomfort. A generation that has lived more online than outdoors may enter boardrooms and offices with unprecedented technical skill, yet profound emotional fragility.
A Call to Action for Leaders and Families
What, then, is to be done? The temptation is to simply wring our hands and lament the loss. But as a grandfather, I cannot afford passivity, and as a citizen, neither can you.
At the family level, we must create boundaries that favor the human over the digital. Screen-free dinners. Outdoor play is enforced as a non-negotiable. Conversations that go deeper than one-word responses. These are not nostalgic luxuries; they are neurological necessities.
At the organizational level, leaders must recognize that employees shaped by this digital upbringing will require different forms of development. Mentorship, team-building, and real human engagement must be intentional. Companies that rely solely on remote screens will inherit the very fragility they bemoan. If the next generation of leaders is to thrive, it will not be by scrolling—it will be by standing together in authentic connection.
The Brain Is Malleable—And So Is Our Future
The human brain is both fragile and resilient. It adapts to its environment with remarkable speed, but that adaptability is a double-edged sword. In just over a decade, smartphones and the COVID SCAMDEMIC have reshaped the cognitive landscape of an entire generation. Yet if this much damage can be done in so short a time, then perhaps restoration can happen just as swiftly—if we act with urgency and resolve.
I do not write this as a technophobe or as someone blind to innovation. I write this as a grandfather who sees the blank stare of a teenager scrolling late into the night, who sees the absence of laughter in outdoor spaces once filled with children, who sees a generation more connected digitally but more disconnected in every other way.
We are not powerless. But we are at a crossroads. The choice is stark: allow technology to continue reshaping our youth into anxious, fragile versions of themselves, or step in with courage to reclaim the human brain for what it was designed to do—create, connect, and flourish in the real world.
We have a choice for the betterment of our children and future generations.
