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# We are not brains in jars
- URL: https://katecarruthers.com/we-are-not-brains-in-jars/
- Published: 2026-09-29T21:39:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-29T21:39:19.000Z
- Description: We are not brains in jars. As technology takes on more of what we do, we need to keep moving, making, thinking and connecting with one another.
- Author: Kate Carruthers
- Tags: technology, ai, wellbeing, education, digital life, human connection

The other day on the train, I watched a group of high school boys sitting together. They were shoulder to shoulder. Every one of them was looking at a device.

Once, I suspect, they would have been talking. Laughing. Arguing about something. Being teenagers together. Now they were physically together, but each was somewhere else.

That’s not an argument against phones. Nor does every train ride need to become a group conversation. But the scene made me think about what we lose when more of life happens through a screen.

Being human is not just being a brain in a jar. We think, learn and make sense of the world through our bodies and through our relationships with other people. We move through places. We use our hands. We notice things. We talk, listen, touch, make and respond. We are embodied and connected beings.

[Movement](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity?ref=katecarruthers.com) is not just about sport or fitness. Walking, playing, gardening, taking the stairs and getting up between tasks all count. Physical activity supports physical and mental health, sleep and brain health. For children and teenagers, it also supports motor and cognitive development. [Australia’s movement guidelines](https://www.health.gov.au/topics/physical-activity/24-hour-movement-guidelines-for-all-australians?language=en&ref=katecarruthers.com) encourage us to move throughout the day and break up long periods of sitting.

The same goes for using our hands. [Handwriting](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8887981/?ref=katecarruthers.com) is a good example. It involves fine motor control, visual-motor coordination and planning a sequence of precise movements. Typing is useful, but it is a different physical activity. Research suggests that [handwriting gives children practice in the particular motor skills involved in writing.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4710970/?ref=katecarruthers.com) It does not prove that handwriting alone improves every kind of fine motor ability. Drawing, building, cooking and making things matter too.

There are also signs that some important skills are under pressure. Australian teenagers’ [reading and mathematics results have continued to fall](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-08/australia-records-worst-ever-reading-and-maths-results-pisa/107101504?ref=katecarruthers.com) over the longer term, although Australia remains above the OECD average. These tests do not measure a whole generation’s intelligence, and they do not tell us that technology is to blame. But they do raise a [reasonable question](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajs4.341?ref=katecarruthers.com): are young people getting enough opportunities to practise reading carefully, working through problems, concentrating, writing by hand and talking face to face?

Technology can help us do a great deal. It can also make it easy to outsource the very activities through which we learn and connect. We can ask a tool to write the message, find the answer, make the plan or choose what to watch next.

The question is not whether we should use technology. Of course we should. The question is what we still need to do ourselves.

As AI becomes more capable, that question becomes more important. **Capability is not the same as wellbeing. Efficiency is not the same as a life well lived.**

We need to keep using our brains and our bodies. Keep moving. Keep making things. Keep having conversations that wander off course. Keep learning how to do things that are difficult before they become easy.

AI is changing how we work and live. But we are not disembodied intelligence. We are people, with bodies, relationships and lives in the physical world.

Let’s not design those things out of our lives. Perhaps go read a book, play a sport or have a rest on the grass.