SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
AI chatbots are becoming more and more a part of childhood and adolescence.
ARJUN SHADRA: I started using my first artificial intelligence chatbot in around 2022, shortly after the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
MCKENZIE CRAIG: I started using AI in about eighth grade. It was introduced to us through our school.
DETROW: That was 15-year-old Arjun Shadra in Round Rock, Texas, and 17-year-old McKenzie Craig (ph) in Raynham, Massachusetts. A new survey finds that a majority of American middle and high school students regularly use chatbots for help with homework and for emotional support. As NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee reports, some AI use was linked to poor mental health.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: Arjun Shadra, the 15-year-old in Texas, says he mostly uses ChatGPT or Gemini to study for exams.
ARJUN: I use it to make myself practice sample questions, sample test questions that I will answer with my own work and help me understand concepts.
CHATTERJEE: He also turns to chatbots when he's stressed.
ARJUN: I've done that in the past, with tests, for example. I was so scared of failing one of my first chemistry tests on conversions and moles that I kept asking ChatGPT, will I be OK? Will my GPA still be fine?
CHATTERJEE: He says his 6-year-old brother is already talking to chatbots as well. Shadra's use of chatbots mirrors what the Jed Foundation found in a survey of more than 5,000 tweens and teens. Fifty-eight percent said they use chatbots for help with schoolwork. A similar number turn to chatbots when they're sad, stressed, lonely or overwhelmed. Psychologist Kayla Anderson is vice president of research and evaluation at the Jed Foundation.
KAYLA ANDERSON: We were able to look at how young people are using AI and then how that correlates separately with indicators of well-being, history of suicidal ideation and attempts and poor mental health.
CHATTERJEE: Using chatbots for companionship or when distressed was linked with worse mental health symptoms overall.
ANDERSON: Higher levels of loneliness, less resilience, history of suicidal ideation and attempts.
CHATTERJEE: But she adds...
ANDERSON: It's unclear based on these data whether AI use is contributing to poor mental health and well-being or whether students who are already in distress in certain ways are more likely to turn to AI.
CHATTERJEE: Preliminary data from other research suggests that it's likely both, says Anne Maheux.
ANNE MAHEUX: Kids who do have worse mental health are seeking out AI to help them. But that AI use may be exacerbating those mental health challenges instead of helping with those challenges.
CHATTERJEE: Maheux is a developmental psychologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She and her colleagues are finding that middle schoolers who use chatbots for companionship grow lonelier over time. In another study, they found similar results among young adults.
MAHEUX: So the theory here is that AI is essentially solving momentary challenges and problems for people in ways that are very helpful in the moment but are actually eroding one's capacity to navigate normative daily stressors and challenges over time.
CHATTERJEE: And that leads to worse mental health. Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.
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