TITLE:
From “Technological Empowerment” to “Technological Erosion”: Strategies for Protecting Critical Thinking in LLM-Assisted Instruction
AUTHORS:
Na Li, Ying Tian
KEYWORDS:
Large Language Models, Critical Thinking, Protection Strategies
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.9,
September
28,
2026
ABSTRACT: While large language models (LLMs) are reshaping instructional forms and realizing “technological empowerment”, they also harbor risks of cognitive outsourcing, algorithmic dependence, and process black-boxing, which constitute forms of “technological erosion”. These risks directly weaken learners’ cognitive engagement and undermine the critical thinking that takes reasoning, questioning, and reflection as its core. In view of this, this paper analyzes the internal mechanism and main logic of the weakening of critical thinking in LLM-assisted instruction from the critical perspective. It further explores and constructs strategies for protecting critical thinking that can move from passive prevention to active immunity and from singular “empowerment” to a balance of “empowerment and protection”.