A poll of 1,458 U.S. teens looks into how they use and think about artificial intelligence, and it turns out, a lot of parents underestimate how often their teens use it.
- Nearly two-thirds of teenagers report using AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, Copilot and Character.ai, for a variety of things, but looking up information and schoolwork help top the list.
- But only 51% of parents think their teens use AI. The thing is, a lot of moms and dads don’t really talk to their teens about AI use, only four in 10 say they do.
- More than half of teens say they’ve used AI to search for information (57%) and to get help with schoolwork (54%).
- Another 47% report using chatbots for fun and entertainment and 42% have used it to summarize an article, book or video.
- Some use it to edit images or videos (38%), a few use it to get the news (19%) and 12% say they’ve gotten emotional support or advice from AI.
- One in 10 teens admit they do all or most schoolwork with help from AI, 21% do some, 23% say they do a little and 45% claim they don’t use AI in this way.
- Over half (59%) of teens think using AI to cheat happens at their school regularly, but 14% say students at their school rarely or never cheat using AI chatbots.
- More teens use AI to help research a topic (48%) or help solve a math problem (43%) than to edit something they wrote (35%).
- While 36% think AI will have a positive impact on their life over the next 20 years, 15% think the effect will be negative.
- Some of teens’ biggest concerns on the negative side are overreliance and jobs.
- And as one teenage boy told Pew researchers, “It’s already being used to spread propaganda, so there’s no end to what it can do. It’s hard to tell what’s real or AI online anymore.”⠀
Source: Pew Research
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