Last weekend, I met a 22-year-old entrepreneur with a four-year-old startup. Yep! do the math. While most of us were still figuring out which bus to take to college, he was already writing smart contracts in Web 3.0. His entire product was built on what he proudly called “vibe coding”. His engineering degree? Just a formality at this point. A social checkbox, he feels obligated to tick.

Assignments? Fully AI-generated. Done in minutes. “Why waste effort?” he asked with a shrug. And honestly, it’s a fair question, one that led us to the theme of this blog: the democratisation of technology, and what it is doing to the way we learn, grow, and live.

The rise of new skills and the fall of old ones

This isn’t the first time technology has lowered the barrier to effort. Remember when calculators first entered classrooms? There was outrage. For the longest time, calculators weren’t allowed in examination halls. Same with Google; it disrupted how we valued memory and information retention. Research became easy. You could fact-check in minutes.

Then we adapted. Calculators didn’t kill math; they made it more conceptual. Google didn’t make us dumber; it just made memory less valuable than search-ability. Now, AI is doing to thinking what Google did to knowing. The skill is no longer just in having answers, but in asking the right questions.

We are simply living through another cycle, one where tools become so powerful and accessible that they redefine the value of effort itself. And if history is any indication, we’re not doomed. We are just being asked to evolve.

As with every technological shift, new skill sets emerge. Googling well is a skill, so is prompt engineering. Crafting the right input to get a useful output. These aren’t lesser abilities; they’re just different. The problem arises when we judge them through the lens of an outdated system. Schools and workplaces often lag behind, still rewarding effort over efficiency, memory over resourcefulness.

Yet, beneath all these shifting skill sets lies one that has remained constant through every age of change: adaptability. The ability to sense when the ground beneath you is moving, to reorient, relearn, and respond—that is the real edge. In a world where the tools will keep evolving faster than any curriculum can update, learning how to learn, and unlearn, might just be the most future-proof skill of all.

The Hidden Costs of Convenience

Let’s zoom out. Humanity has always been in the business of making things easier. Fire made food edible. Agriculture made food stable. The wheel, the pulley, the engine; every invention was an effort-reduction strategy. So if a student today uses AI to write an essay in 15 minutes instead of spending two hours… is that unnatural? Or is it just the next logical step?

And yet, with all this ease comes an undercurrent of danger, especially for the young. When everything is accessible, entitlement sneaks in. Effort feels like injustice. Waiting feels like suffering. Struggle becomes something to avoid rather than something to grow through.

Worse, convenience often breeds complacency. The human brain is designed to be challenged. Neuroplasticity: our brain’s remarkable ability to rewire and adapt. It thrives on novelty, uncertainty and often failure.

When we work through a complex problem, try a new strategy, or recover from a setback, our brain forges new connections. That’s literally how growth happens. Not necessarily through just repetition, but through continuous friction. When life becomes too easy, those adaptive pathways atrophy. We stop exercising the very mental muscles that keep us resilient and imaginative.

What we often overlook is that discovery—whether it’s a new solution, a creative idea, or a unique way to earn, doesn’t always come from the outside world. It comes from within. It’s the product of tension, curiosity, and insight. The real dopamine hit isn’t from having something delivered to you; It’s from figuring it out yourself.

1923, Drama Series| If we buy these things, we are no longer working for ourselves, we are working for you.

So the question isn’t whether effort reduction is good or bad—it’s what we do with the effort we save. What fills that space? Growth? Mastery? Or mindless consumption?

The Paradox of Abundance

Here is the real irony: many of our modern problems are no longer caused by scarcity, but by abundance. We’re overfed, overstimulated, and overwhelmed. We’re paralyzed not by lack of choice, but by too many. The struggle is no longer survival, but significance.

And in this attention economy, where social media and streaming platforms are engineered to keep us scrolling, that saved time often gets funneled into distraction rather than development. The same concerns raised about television 20 years ago are now amplified in the age of TikTok. We’re not just consuming content anymore; we are being consumed by it.

We have access to tools our ancestors could only dream of. And yet, anxiety, dissatisfaction, and mental fatigue are higher than ever. Why? Because ease without direction leads to existential drift. When effort disappears, meaning often follows.

Effort isn’t just a path to progress, it’s a source of purpose. When we struggle, we feel anchored. When we engage deeply with something—learning a skill, solving a problem, building a relationship. We feel useful. And usefulness breeds meaning.

Let’s take that college assignment again. Two hours of labor, now done in 15 minutes. Thanks to AI. That’s 105 minutes of “free time.” But free isn’t always the same as valuable. What are you doing with it?

Are you learning a new skill? Starting a passion project? Building relationships that enrich you? Or are you scrolling through a curated feed of strangers living a life that makes you feel like yours is falling short?

Technology has handed us a powerful gift: time. But time, like any resource, is only valuable when used well. The assignment may be done, but the learning is not.

A Simple Guide to Ground Yourself in the Age of Ease

If you’re someone who’s tech-savvy, ambitious, and staring into the vast ocean of possibility, here’s a little checklist to help you not drown in it:

• Move your body daily – Strengthen your physical foundation. Your brain lives in your body; treat it with care. Sleep, nutrition, movement—it’s all interconnected. You can’t code well if your spine is collapsing.
• Flex your mental muscles – Read, reflect, debate. Don’t just ask GPT—form your own thoughts. You can outsource information, not insight. You can’t automate depth.
• Monitor your entertainment diet – Be mindful of what you consume, and how often. Entertainment should nourish or delight—not sedate. Bingeing is fine sometimes, but it shouldn’t be your default state of being.
• Know who you are without a username – Your identity should be rooted in your values, not your follower count or daily output. Likes fade. Integrity sticks.
• Master basic life skills – Cook a meal. Hold a meaningful conversation. Be kind, without needing credit. These are rare superpowers in the algorithmic age.

The democratisation of technology is here and it’s not slowing down. But with the collapse of effort also comes something quieter, yet profound: the democratisation of meaning. No longer do religion, culture, or the state define what a good life is. That responsibility, and freedom, now rests with the individual.

And that’s the catch: meaning doesn’t arrive by delivery. It must be made. Chosen. Revisited. Because while tools may be everywhere, intention remains rare. And mastery, even rarer.