Everyone’s talking about how ChatGPT is dumbing us down. It might be true, but TikTok, reels, bangers on X, and meme culture are doing something worse: shrinking our vocabulary and, with it, our capacity to think.

My son couldn’t name a feeling, so he threw a tantrum. Two days later, he found the word. And the tantrums stopped.

That moment taught me what many forget: language is how we think, feel, and regulate our inner lives. This post is about how we're quietly losing that: The death of depth.