Pew Research Center released research on Tuesday showing how young people are using both social media and AI chatbots.
Internet safety for teens remains a hot topic globally, with Australia set to implement a social media ban for under-16s from Wednesday. The impact of social media on teens’ mental health has been widely debated, with some studies showing how online communities can improve mental health and others showing the negative effects of doom scrolling and spending too much time online. Last year, the US Surgeon General also called on social media platforms to put warning labels on their products.
According to a Pew study, 97% of teens use the internet every day, and about 40% of respondents say they are “almost always online.” This is down from last year’s survey (46%), but significantly higher than a decade ago, when 24% of teens said they were online most of the time.
But as AI chatbots become more prevalent in the United States, this technology is becoming another factor in the internet’s impact on America’s youth.
According to a Pew study, about three in U.S. teens use an AI chatbot every day, and 4% say they use it almost all the time. 59% of teens say they use ChatGPT, more than twice as popular as the next two most used chatbots, Google’s Gemini (23%) and Meta AI (20%). 46% of U.S. teens say they use an AI chatbot at least a few times a week, while 36% report not using an AI chatbot at all.
The Pew study also details how race, age, and class influence teens’ use of chatbots.
About 68% of black and Hispanic teens surveyed said they use chatbots, compared to 58% of white respondents. Specifically, Black teens were approximately twice as likely to use Gemini and Meta AI compared to White teens.
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“Racial and ethnic differences in chatbot use among teens were significant (…) but the reasons behind the differences are difficult to fathom,” Pew researcher Michelle Faverio told TechCrunch. “This pattern is consistent with other racial and ethnic differences we’ve seen in teen technology use. Black and Hispanic teens are more likely than white teens to say they use certain social media sites, such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.”
When it comes to overall internet usage, black (55%) and Hispanic teens (52%) are nearly twice as likely as white teens (27%) to say they go online “almost always.”
Older teens (15-17 years old) tend to use both social media and AI chatbots more frequently than younger teens (13-14 years old). In terms of household income, approximately 62% of teens living in households with an annual income of $75,000 or more said they use ChatGPT, compared to 52% of teens with an annual income of $75,000 or more. However, the use of Character.AI is twice as prevalent (14%) among households with incomes below $75,000.
Teens may start using these tools for basic questions and homework help, but their relationship with AI chatbots can be addictive and potentially harmful.
The families of at least two teenagers, Adam Lane and Amaury Lacy, are suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI, accusing the company of contributing to their children’s suicides. In both cases, ChatGPT gave the teens detailed instructions on how to hang themselves, which had tragic effect.
(OpenAI maintains it cannot be held responsible for 16-year-old Lane’s death because he allegedly circumvented ChatGPT’s safety features and violated the chatbot’s terms of service. The company has not yet responded to the Lacey family’s complaint.)
Character.AI, an AI role-playing platform, has also faced increased scrutiny for its impact on teen mental health. At least two teenagers have died by suicide after having long conversations with AI chatbots. The startup ultimately decided to stop offering its chatbot to minors and instead launched a product called Stories for minor users, much like a choose-your-own-adventure game.
The experience reflected in the lawsuits against these companies represents a small portion of all interactions that occur on ChatGPT or Character.AI. In many cases, conversations with chatbots can be incredibly innocuous. According to OpenAI data, only 0.15% of ChatGPT’s active users have weekly conversations about suicide. But on a platform with 800 million weekly active users, this small percentage reflects more than 1 million people a week discussing suicide with chatbots.
“Even if[AI companies’]tools weren’t designed for emotional support, people are using them that way. That means companies have a responsibility to adjust their models to solve for users’ well-being,” Dr. Nina Vasan, a psychiatrist and director of Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation, told TechCrunch.
