Published Jul. 19, 2026at6:00am
At a recent high school event in San Francisco, we asked 150 teens two questions. First, “How many of you know someone who has used AI to help them with their emotions, or with relationship problems, or to help them communicate with a friend or family member?” Nearly every hand shot up. Second: “How many of you have done this?”
Not a single hand.
A backlash against tech is catching fire, much of it overdue. For too long, Big Tech has used children as guinea pigs for its products, from social media to broad ed-tech saturation in classrooms. But the gap we saw in San Francisco between what young people are doing — using and relying on AI — and what they are willing to admit suggests we are driving the technology’s use underground, making kids feel bad about using tools that are both ubiquitous and untested.
This shame isn’t just unhelpful. It makes AI use riskier.
Young people are navigating truly unchartered waters. Several times a day, they must weigh: Should I use AI for schoolwork? Should I ask AI for its take on a social dilemma? Sixty-four percent of teens report (opens in new tab) using AI. Research, interviews, and focus groups reveal that many kids feel they aren’t using it enough and falling behind in preparing for future jobs. Plenty feel guilty for using it but insist they must, because everyone else is using it. Some refuse to use it but wonder whether that will cost them in the long term. And because of fear of judgment, many are not talking about their AI use to anyone — neither their peers nor the adults in their lives.
These are not signs of reckless use but evidence of a vacuum or, worse, inconsistent guidance from schools and parents — i.e., all the adults in kids’ lives.
Research from YouGov and The Rithm Project (opens in new tab), (opens in new tab)a nonprofit dedicated to helping young people reclaim human connection in the age of AI, found that 61% of young people say their parents rarely or never talk to them about AI; 53% say the same about their teachers. When adults do engage, the conversations are mostly about academic integrity.
This is a missed opportunity considering young people’s growing emotional reliance on AI. About 18% of young people surveyed said they talk to general-purpose chatbots (like ChatGPT and Claude) for emotional and personal support, and another 15% say they do so with AI characters playing the role of therapists or fictional characters — meaning 1 in 3 are talking to AI in intimate and vulnerable ways. Among kids who use AI for personal or emotional support, 42% say they feel they have to hide how much they use it. For those engaging with AI characters, it’s 56%. The risk is real: This kind of behavior can deepen problematic beliefs, encourage dangerous behavior, entrench dependency, or make kids reluctant to engage in the messiness of human relationships (opens in new tab).
Adults might be quick to judge or control, but the reality is that this orientation toward top-down control is precisely what motivates young people to hide their use. One teenager we interviewed for the YouGov/The Rithm Project study put it plainly: “I keep it to myself because I don’t want them to think it’s unsafe and stop me from using it.”
We’re in the middle innings of an important moral debate about tech. There is a role in this debate for policy. We support regulating LLMs, and schools have every right to ban smartphones and develop AI policies.
But bans and regulations alone won’t solve the deeper problem. When adults — teachers, parents, policymakers — respond with accusations, restrictions, or disbelief, we don’t stop the behavior; we drive it underground, losing the chance to understand and guide it. Research on adolescence (opens in new tab)suggests that bans alone are too blunt to accomplish what is most needed: helping kids develop judgment, discernment, and responsible AI use. What young people need most isn’t another rule — it’s a conversation about how to relate to a new intelligence that feels social but isn’t human and comes without a cultural playbook.
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It’s similar to teaching a teen to drive. We don’t ban them from the roads. But before they get on a highway, we have them practice in a range of conditions so they are comfortable and responsible when they’re behind the wheel alone.
So what can the conversation look like? We can replace shame with more constructive approaches: curiosity, conversation, and clear boundaries. Don’t just declare that “Using AI will make you dumb”; ask, “Where can it stretch your learning and where does it do the learning for you?” Develop their discernment for when the tech crosses a line — it’s “glazing” them (sycophancy) or becoming a crutch for their decision-making — and practice the muscles for noticing and recalibrating. Help them develop strategies for moments that feel murky, like brainstorming or a first draft, rather than issuing blanket rules like “Don’t cheat.” One way for families to start is through tools like The AI Effect (opens in new tab), a game The Rithm Project designed to spark ethical and relational conversations. In this game, players vote whether an AI use case (i.e., “Ask AI to write a heartfelt speech for a friend’s special occasion”) supports human connection, erodes human connection, or “it depends.”
Discernment may be growing. Gallup’s recent data (opens in new tab) found that fewer kids are excited or hopeful about AI than one year ago, while significantly more are angry about it. At the same time, weekly or daily use crept up, from 47% in 2024 to 51% in 2025.
These signals point to an opportunity: The Rithm Project and YouGov found that 53% of young people surveyed reported setting boundaries with AI, grounding their use in values, or using AI alongside, not instead of, human support. Among those using it for emotional support, many noticed their dependency and AI’s sycophancy, pulling back use, prompting AI to use less fawning responses, or triangulating AI advice with real-life resources. Cultivating this discernment may be key to their own boundaries and to a broader intergenerational movement calling for safer AI from tech companies for all.
Pope Leo XIV called on us to not shy away from the AI moment. “Building a world in which everyone can flourish requires shared responsibility and courage,” he wrote in his encyclical. “No one can single-handledly bear the weight of the challenges the world is facing.” Kids cannot be left to make sense of such a profound, history-shaping technology with little more than a ban on cheating or disbelief that one might turn to a bot for emotional support.
Many parents feel they missed the boat with social media and gaming. They struggled to understand what was happening in real time. Somewhere between the displacement of healthy teen socialization, a firehose of 24/7 content, and a dangerous, always-on comparison culture, our kids got lonelier and more lost in worlds foreign to many adults.
AI presents an even bigger threat to kids — and they need to learn the judgment to navigate an AI-saturated world. That can happen out in the open, alongside supportive adults, parents, and peers — or hidden in their screens, alone again.