Social Media Is “Bad for Our Brains,” — Author Chimamanda Adichie Warns

Renowned Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has delivered a sobering warning about the growing dominance of social media, insisting that the digital frenzy gripping today’s world is reshaping human behavior in damaging ways.

Speaking on the impact of digital culture, Adichie argued that while literature broadens focus, sharpens thought, and nourishes the mind, social media does the opposite by rewiring the brain and eroding people’s ability to concentrate.

“The thing social media can never do for us that literature does for us… it’s actually quite bad for our brains. It’s rewiring our brains and compressing our ability to focus. Literature does the opposite,” she said, her words ringing like a cultural alarm bell at a time when attention spans are shrinking and the written word fights for survival.

Adichie, whose works like Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah have become literary touchstones across the globe, acknowledged that there will always be a group of devoted readers, yet she expressed concern that fewer people today seem to truly care about literature.

For her, this decline in reading culture signals more than a shift in leisure habits—it reflects a society trading depth for distraction.

Beyond her critique of social media, Adichie turned her attention to the uncritical embrace of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. She warned that humanity is placing too much power in the hands of a few tech giants without sufficient questioning of their motives or the consequences.

“There is a kind of unquestioning acceptance of social technologies that surprises me. We should question more social media, AI. The few people deciding how our future as human beings should be is troubling. This is the time to question AI, because we haven’t even reached a global consensus on what it is supposed to do,” she cautioned.

Her warning is not merely philosophical—it reflects a growing global unease. While AI promises vast possibilities in science, medicine, and communication, it also poses risks that could reshape economies, identities, and human relationships in unforeseen ways.

Adichie stressed that without careful management and a collective global framework, these technologies could lead to outcomes humanity is not prepared for.

In a world where endless scrolling has become the default pastime, Adichie’s words strike a nerve.

They highlight the tension between a culture of instant gratification and the enduring power of literature, reminding us that novels, essays, and books demand patience and reflection—the very qualities that digital platforms seem to erode.

Her call is clear, if society wishes to safeguard its intellectual depth and human autonomy, it must rediscover the discipline of reading and question the unchecked march of technology.