Loss of Essential Life Skills

What Skills are Being Lost?

 

Increasingly disconnected from real-world experiences, children are struggling with basic skills once learned through daily interaction, such as empathy, communication, conflict resolution, and resilience.

 

As screens replace face-to-face interaction and digital convenience displaces hands-on experiences, children are missing critical opportunities to grow into capable, confident adults. The result is a generation less equipped to navigate the challenges of everyday life.

 

While many academic skills (science, maths, history etc) can be learnt at any age, the childhood period is developmentally essential for certain life skills. For example: creativity, when bored; the ability to self-sooth, when frustrated; the skill to compromise, when in an argument; critical thinking, when trying to learn something new; or, empathy, learnt by reading another human’s non-verbal facial cues.

 

When life moves online, children lose opportunities to learn the life skills which will be essential in their adult lives. We cannot expect children to learn emotional resilience, conflict resolution, interpersonal communication, or empathy from a screen.

Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, Founder, Human Change Foundation

The Evidence

  • Cognitive Offloading

    64%

    of children use AI chatbots for everything from schoolwork to practising tough conversations

    Internet Matters, 2025

  • Critical Thinking

    ⚡📱

    digital overuse can lead to a decrease in thinking skills and impaired decision-making abilities

    Aïmeur et al., 2023

  • Heart Disease

    At 10

    each additional hour of screen time is linked to higher risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes

    Horner et al., 2025

  • Digital Distractions

    🔔

    lead to higher stress, reduced productivity, and a superficial understanding of information

    Firth et al., 2019

  • Attention

    ADHD

    higher levels of screen time are associated with an increased likelihood of ADHD-like symptoms

    Nikkelen et al., 2014

  • Language Delay

    🎥

    rapidly paced, high-frame-rate videos with flashing images and limited language can cause language delays

    Wits University, 2022

  • AI Schoolwork

    📝🤖

    students using AI to draft essays for several months showed reduced critical thinking and memory retention

    MIT Media Lab, 2025

  • Development

    At 3

    just one minute of screen time is linked to seven fewer words and five fewer vocalizations

    University of Adelaide, 2024

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