We’re Surrounded by Tools — and Starving for Conversation

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how kids learn, and why something feels off — even though, on paper, they have more tools, information, and technology than any generation in history.

It hit me watching my five-year-old granddaughter.

She can’t read yet. She can’t write yet. But her vocabulary is advanced for her age, her sentences are thoughtful, and she speaks with a confidence and clarity that surprises people. The reason isn’t complicated. Her father is a stay-at-home dad, and he talks to her like an adult. Not baby talk. Not simplified language. Just normal conversation. All day long.

He explains things. He answers questions fully. He listens. He engages.

And it shows.

That made me stop and think — not just about her, but about myself.

I never read much growing up. Honestly, I barely read at all well into adulthood. If I had to guess, I probably read four books my entire life. School never framed reading in a way that connected with how my mind worked. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t learning.

I learned by listening.
I learned by watching.
I learned by thinking things through out loud.
I learned by talking — a lot.

I absorbed information through conversation, experience, and pattern recognition. I was always thinking, always connecting dots, always questioning how things worked. Reading just wasn’t my intake channel.

Fast forward to today, and here’s the irony: with AI, my reading and writing have exploded.

Not because AI made me smarter — but because it finally removed the friction between my thoughts and the page. I can talk through ideas, refine them, challenge them, see them reflected back clearly. Suddenly writing feels like a conversation instead of a chore. And once that loop opened up, reading followed naturally.

That’s when it clicked.

The problem today isn’t that kids have technology.
It’s that technology is replacing the very thing that builds human intelligence in the first place.

Conversation.

Human thinking is social. It always has been. Long before books, long before screens, knowledge was passed from mouth to ear. Stories. Arguments. Corrections. Questions. Disagreements. That’s how language forms. That’s how judgment develops. That’s how confidence is built.

When kids grow up staring at screens instead of faces, something important gets lost.

Phones don’t teach timing.
They don’t teach tone.
They don’t teach how to explain yourself when someone doesn’t understand you.
They don’t teach how to read discomfort, interest, boredom, or skepticism.

Texting is efficient, but it’s thin. Scrolling is endless, but it’s passive. Likes and emojis aren’t feedback — they’re noise.

And when you remove real conversation from a child’s daily life, you don’t just reduce vocabulary. You weaken the muscles of thought itself.

That’s why so many young people today struggle to hold unscripted conversations. They’re uncomfortable with silence. They avoid disagreement. They have trouble articulating what they actually think. Not because they’re unintelligent — but because they haven’t had enough practice being human with other humans.

We’ve confused access to information with understanding.

A calculator can give you an answer. It can’t tell you if the answer makes sense.
Spell-check can fix a sentence. It can’t clarify a thought.
AI can polish language. It can’t supply judgment or wisdom.

Those things only come from engagement — from talking, listening, being corrected, and trying again.

That’s why watching my granddaughter feels hopeful. She’s doing the hardest part first. She’s building language, reasoning, and confidence through real interaction. When reading and writing come, they’ll come fast — because there will already be something solid underneath.

And that’s also why this moment in history makes me uneasy.

We’re raising a generation surrounded by tools that amplify intelligence, while quietly removing the experiences that create it.

We’ve never been more connected — and never talked less.

Ancient cultures understood this instinctively. Wisdom was passed face to face. Elders mattered. Teaching happened in the home, on walks, through stories. Even Scripture emphasizes teaching through daily life — conversation woven into ordinary moments.

Tools came and went. Civilizations rose and fell. But conversation endured.

Technology isn’t the enemy. Used well, it’s leverage. I’m living proof of that. But leverage without foundation doesn’t lift anything. It just exposes what’s missing.

If there’s one thing worth protecting — one thing worth being intentional about — it’s talking to our kids. Really talking. Not lecturing. Not entertaining. Engaging.

Ask them to explain what they think.
Let them struggle for words.
Correct them kindly.
Disagree respectfully.

That’s how minds are formed.

The kids who grow up with that balance — tools and conversation — are going to stand out. Not because they know more facts, but because they know how to think, speak, and connect.

And that’s something no device can ever replace.