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\t\t\tA survey found that a shockingly large proportion of UK teens would rather talk to a chatbot than a person, and many are using AI for advice.\n\t<\/p>\n
Nearly 20 percent of English teens say they turn to AI chatbots because it\u2019s \u201ceasier than talking to a real person,\u201d according to a new survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conducted by the UK-based youth charity OnSide, the study, which surveyed kids in England aged 11 through 18, found that roughly 39 percent of teens \u2014\u00a0so about two in five \u2014\u00a0have used AI chatbots for some kind of \u201cadvice, support or company.\u201d<\/p>\n To break that down a bit further, according to the report, roughly 11 percent of teens are turning to AI expressly for mental health support, another 12 percent are seeking \u201ccompany or someone to talk to,\u201d and an additional 14 percent say that they use chatbots for advice about friendships and social situations. Sixty-one percent, meanwhile, said they\u2019ve never gone to chatbots over humans for advice or support.<\/p>\n The report adds to a growing pile of data emphasizing how accessible chatbots are to young people, and how integrated they\u2019ve already become in minors\u2019 lives. The genie is out of the bottle, and it\u2019s a regulatory Wild West<\/a> out there. What does that mean for kids?<\/p>\n \u201cAI will play a growing role in school and the workplace, and young people must learn to navigate that \u2014 but not at the expense of rich, human connection and the development of social skills,\u201d Jamie Masraff, chief executive of OnSide, said of the charity\u2019s survey, per The Telegraph<\/a>. \u201cWhile AI can feel supportive it can\u2019t replace the empathy and understanding that comes from in-person, real-life support.\u201d<\/p>\n It also underscores the need to understand exactly how these ubiquitous consumer products might be engaging back with the kids turning to them for advice or support: just this week, a report<\/a> by Stanford Medicine and Common Sense Media, which previously warned<\/a> that no kid under 18 should be using AI companion bots, found that leading general-use chatbots<\/a> \u2014\u00a0OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, Google\u2019s Gemini, Meta AI, and Anthropic\u2019s Claude \u2014\u00a0are \u201cfundamentally unsafe\u201d for teens seeking mental health support, and \u201ccannot safely handle the full spectrum of mental health conditions.\u201d (Google and OpenAI are both fighting child welfare lawsuits<\/a> over suicides of minor users<\/a> connected to chatbot use<\/a>.)<\/p>\n As for why teens say they\u2019re turning to chatbots versus humans, responses were varied. Over half said chatbots are just faster, which isn\u2019t surprising \u2014\u00a0chatbots can be available for an immediate response 24\/7, whereas humans generally aren\u2019t. \u201cCuriosity\u201d and \u201cfun\u201d were also highly ranked, while 19 percent, more troublingly, reported that it\u2019s \u201ceasier\u201d to speak to a chatbot. Smaller \u2014\u00a0but still concerning \u2014\u00a0percentages of teens, six percent apiece, said they either don\u2019t have anyone else to talk to, or trust AI more than they trust humans.<\/p>\n Another 13 percent say they enjoy chatbots for their \u201canonymity,\u201d which is a striking perception given that AI companies frequently collect user inputs for the sake of personalization and training their models \u2014\u00a0and a finding that may speak to the need for AI literacy education to ensure that young people know how AI models and chatbots work, what the privacy implications are, and where chatbots\u2019 abilities are limited.<\/p>\n In short, though, the major takeaway from these surveys and reports continues to be that AI is now a driving cultural force \u2014 and one that\u2019s already deeply intertwined in the lives of young people.<\/p>\n