Good morning. Today\u2019s teenagers seeking mental health support are more likely to consult a chatbot than a professional website or a mental health app, according to a study published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
One in four aged 13 to 17 have turned to an AI chatbot regarding mental health problems, the study says. Worryingly, that number climbs to 40% for young people affected by serious violence, whether as a victim or perpetrator.<\/p>\n
These are teenagers in really difficult situations, but the findings by the Youth Endowment Fund coincide with evidence that the average waiting time for a young person referred to a mental health service is 392 days \u2013 meaning warnings from youth leaders that children at risk need \u201ca human, not a bot\u201d may ring hollow.<\/p>\n
For today\u2019s newsletter, I spoke to Rob Booth, the Guardian\u2019s UK technology editor, about what lies behind growing reliance on chatbots for mental health support, whether they actually help young people, and the rising concern over the dangers posed when children engage with them at length. First, the headlines.<\/p>\n
Five big stories<\/p>\n
Politics | Keir Starmer has called on European leaders to to \u201cgo further\u201d in modernising the interpretation of the European convention on human rights (ECHR)<\/a> to prevent asylum seekers using it to avoid deportation and see off the rise of the populist right.<\/p>\n Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months<\/a>, if Ukraine\u2019s parliament and foreign allies will assist in making it secure, after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gaza | Malnutrition continues to take a toll among Gaza\u2019s young despite a ceasefire declared two months ago, with more than 9,000 children hospitalised for acute malnutrition in October alone, according to the latest UN figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n Technology | Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Northern Ireland | Britain\u2019s security services allowed a top agent inside the IRA known as Stakeknife to commit murders and then impeded a police investigation into the affair, according to a damning official report<\/a>.<\/p>\n In depth: \u2018They\u2019ve become ubiquitous\u2019Teenagers think their phones offer them more confidentiality than in-person therapy. Photograph: Antonio Guillem\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n The survey (pdf<\/a>) of 11,000 children by the Youth Endowment Fund found that more than half (53%) of teenagers aged 13 to 17 used some sort of online or digital mental health support, underlining a widespread need. But at the very time when mental health is in decline, the services that would provide help are stretched to breaking point.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got this picture of two systems going in completely different directions,\u201d says Rob Booth. \u201cHuman mental health services becoming increasingly unresponsive to children\u2019s and teenagers\u2019 needs, and chatbots that are becoming more responsive to whatever children are asking them to say.\u201d<\/p>\n In June, an NHS survey<\/a> found sharp rises in rates of anxiety, depression and other disorders have led to one in four young people in England having a common mental health condition. Dr Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of Mind, said at the time: \u201cThe nation\u2019s mental health is deteriorating and our current system is overwhelmed, underfunded and unequal to the scale of the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Young people need more rapid access to help<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, says Rob, the availability of AI technology has increased enormously, and it has become far more user-friendly.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery couple of months there\u2019s an improvement in its speed of response, in its understanding of what you\u2019ve said before, what they call the context. So they\u2019re getting better and better at an extraordinary pace,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd so you set the rapid advancement of the technology and its usability, against the NHS mental health system, which has long waiting lists, which are getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n While the average waiting time for a young person who has been referred to mental health services was 392 days<\/a> last year, more than 78,577 young people waited over a year to speak to someone, up 52% on the previous year. With almost a million young people (910,567) referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services last year, many had their cases closed without receiving any treatment at all.<\/p>\n By contrast, Rob says, the chatbot is \u201c24\/7\u201d \u2013 and you don\u2019t need a referral to access one.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the girls I spoke to said: you can go again, you can go again, you can go again \u2013 there\u2019s a sense of endless patience,\u201d says Rob. Increasingly with AI technology able to remember more and more about what a user talked about before, and with its model favouring answers that are likely to please its users, this can leave teenagers feeling as though they are talking to someone who understands them.<\/p>\n \u201cTo some extent, it does probably understand you, potentially better than a stranger, especially in the mental health system, especially if you\u2019re being moved from pillar to post. What it might not do, of course, is push back and challenge anything you might say,\u201d says Rob.<\/p>\n Why are teenagers turning to AI chatbots?<\/p>\n One teenager who spoke to Rob had lost two friends. After one was shot and another stabbed, she felt the chatbot was less intimidating and more available than a mental health professional when it came to dealing with the trauma. She began to see the chatbot as a friend. \u201cThe empathy that they feel from the chatbot can be far greater than what they feel from dealing with the bureaucracy of mental health services, being rejected, being told you\u2019ve got to wait,\u201d says Rob.<\/p>\n The teenager has her phone set up so that she clicks twice and the chatbot is right there. \u201cShe can talk to it because [AI is now] very good at voice recognition. So it\u2019s extremely accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds that for many young people, AI is available on a number of platforms that they regularly interact with \u2013 it\u2019s built into things like Instagram, WhatsApp and Google.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are chatbots all over young people\u2019s phones now, in the same way as social media. They\u2019ve become ubiquitous as part of many teenagers\u2019 digital lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Worryingly, because chatbots aren\u2019t beholden to children\u2019s safeguarding codes, or answerable to a headteacher, some children also feel as though their privacy will be more protected by them.<\/p>\n Rob points to another young person he spoke to as an example, who had a negative experience speaking to a counsellor because he did not understand that a conversation they had was not going to remain confidential.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a situation that involved violence. He discovered that the other teachers had been informed about the situation and also parents.\u201d<\/p>\n Even although that course of action might have been in his best interest, \u201cit was something that put him off repeating that process. He believed the chatbot offered anonymity,\u201d says Rob.<\/p>\n What are the dangers of using AI chatbots for mental health support?<\/p>\n There have been growing concerns about the dangers of chatbots when children engage with them at length. OpenAI, the US company behind ChatGPT, is facing several lawsuits<\/a>, including from families of young people who have killed themselves after long engagements. In the case of the California 16-year-old Adam Raine, who took his life in April, OpenAI has denied<\/a> it was caused by the chatbot. It said it has been improving its technology \u201cto recognise and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support\u201d.<\/p>\n As Rob reported<\/a> in October, GPT-5, a version of ChatGPT, has been found to instruct users on everything from how to write a suicide note to providing detailed methods about how to hide an eating disorder, according to researchers. The earlier version refused both prompts and told the user to consider talking to a mental health professional. OpenAI has said that an updated version includes additional safeguards.<\/p>\n As generative AI is trained to give answers based on probability, it rarely, if ever gives two answers that are the same. It\u2019s part of what makes it so effective \u2013 the chatbot has idiosyncrasies in how it communicates with people, making them feel special \u2013 but it\u2019s also what makes it hard to train.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, a chatbot can be very free with its advice, other times, it can be quite censorious,\u201d says Rob.<\/p>\n What controls are there on chatbots in the UK?<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In the UK, controls under the Online Safety Act are \u201cstricter than anything at a federal level in the US\u201d, and some chatbots are covered. But in November, Liz Kendall, the technology minister, said she feared that the digital frontier might be outpacing regulators<\/a>, with AI chatbots a particular concern.<\/p>\n Referring to the Online Safety Act, Kendall said she would fill the gaps if it was discovered that chatbots were not properly covered.<\/p>\n \u201cIf chatbots aren\u2019t included or properly covered by the legislation, and we\u2019re really working through that now, then they will have to be,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cPeople have got to feel their kids are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n What else we\u2019ve been readingLighting up the screen \u2026 Miguel Angel Garcia in Die Like a Man. Photograph: PR<\/p>\n Yassin El-Moudden reports<\/a> from the second year of London\u2019s Armenian film festival, where he learns that a global diaspora sharing scarring memories of repression, displacement and genocide are finding a voice. Martin<\/p>\n A \u201cDavid Hockney\u201d of the photographic world, who was funny, dry and \u201cnever lost a sense of wonder\u201d. I enjoyed this tribute<\/a> to late photographer Martin Parr, by friends, peers and collaborators. Karen<\/p>\n I wrote in yesterday\u2019s First Edition<\/a> about the huge distances teams will cover in the 2026 Fifa World Cup. For ESPN Cesar Hernandez investigates<\/a> how flying disrupts the recovery planning for elite athletes. Martin<\/p>\n Their families may have been on opposite sides of near-nuclear war, but the descendants of US president John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, his Soviet counterpart, have teamed up for a \u201cthrilling\u201d<\/a> podcast. Karen<\/p>\n A lot of my peers complain people don\u2019t make interesting weird music any more, which simply isn\u2019t true, as Noel Gardner demonstrates<\/a> with this best of 2025 New Weird Britain list \u2013 as much a mindset as a genre. Martin<\/p>\n SportDominik Szoboszlai scores the only goal of the night at San Siro to defeat Inter in the Champions League. Photograph: Claudia Greco\/Reuters<\/p>\n Football | Dominik Szoboszlai scored an 88th-minute penalty to give Liverpool a much-needed boost<\/a> with a 1-0 win at Inter in the Champions League.<\/p>\n Football | Gianluca Scamacca and Charles De Ketelaere were on target in Atalanta\u2019s 2-1 Champions League victory against Chelsea<\/a> who took a first-half lead through Jo\u00e3o Pedro. Spurs \u2013 in front of the visiting Son Heung-min \u2013 beat Slavia Prague 3-0<\/a> with an own goal and two penalties and went ninth in the table.<\/p>\n Cricket | England\u2019s Ashes tour suffered another blow as fast bowler Mark Wood admitted \u201cmy knee just hasn\u2019t held up\u201d and dropped out of the series<\/a>.<\/p>\n The front pages<\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s lead story is \u201cPM urges Europe to curb human rights laws to halt rise of populism\u201d. The i paper has \u201cFears UK and Europe can\u2019t fight Russia alone as Trump turns on \u2018decaying\u2019 nations\u201d while the Metro runs with \u201cTrump lashes out at \u2018weak\u2019 Europe\u201d. The Times says \u201cNumber of police forces cut to dozen under plan\u201d. The Mirror reports on \u201cThe lost Covid billions \u2026 we will never get our cash back\u201d and the faces accompanying that story are Rishi Sunak, Michelle Mone and Boris Johnson.<\/p>\n The Daily Express\u2019s quote headline, too long to reprint here, is about women and girls\u2019 safety after two asylum seekers were jailed for rape. The Mail blasts out \u201cAsylum fiasco without end\u201d. \u201cBardella: I will stop the boats\u201d says the Telegraph \u2013 that\u2019s paraphrasing a French presidential candidate. To conclude, the Financial Times: \u201cUS gives Zelenskyy \u2018days\u2019 to respond to peace deal demanding loss of territory\u201d.<\/p>\n Today in FocusToday in Focus talks to three teenagers, and technology reporter Josh Taylor about Australia\u2019s world-first legislation: a social media ban for under-16s. Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The social media ban for kids: Australia\u2019s world-first experiment<\/p>\n Today in Focus talks to three teenagers, and technology reporter Josh Taylor, about Australia\u2019s world-first legislation: a social media ban for under-16s<\/a><\/p>\n Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings Illustration: Ben Jennings\/The GuardianThe Upside<\/p>\n A bit of good news to remind you that the world\u2019s not all bad<\/p>\n A traditional handcrafted wooden nutcracker. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance\/Alamy<\/p>\n