Keyword: «digital hygiene»

The article analyzes the psychological consequences of the active introduction of generative neural networks (ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Alice AI) into the process of teaching English in secondary schools. The authors introduce and substantiate the working construct of “cognitive dependence”, describing the pathological delegation by a student of cognitive operations (translation, generation of grammatical structures, spell-checking) to an external algorithm. Changes in the structure of educational motivation are examined: the displacement of intrinsic interest by extrinsic reinforcement (points, levels) and a decrease in frustration tolerance. Based on theoretical analysis, three key symptom complexes are identified: the illusion of competence, atrophy of language intuition, and speech anxiety in “live” dialogue. Criteria for distinguishing between adaptive use of AI and clinically significant forms of dependence are proposed.