1 in 3 young people tell AI their secrets

In the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E, humans live a leisurely existence aboard an endlessly floating spacecraft after Earth has been contaminated through littering. In this spacecraft, robotic technicians tend to humanity’s every need and whim, including advice regarding their dietary habits, fashion trends, and administrative decisions. Great calamity comes when the humans outsource their human practices to the robots, resulting in a disembodied, dysregulated reality as they live forever on bespoke couches.

The story isn’t anti-tech, as there are great robotic heroes in the film. It is only the cosmonauts’ carelessness and willingness to eschew major functions of humanity, becoming ‘brains in a jar,’ that leaves them so vulnerable to robotic exploitation.

As we grapple with technological change, it’s worth considering if we would avoid their fate. Have we educated our students to use AI, or are we allowing them to be used by AI?

One new study gives us food for thought as to how young students are engaging with our newest technological robotic breakthrough of AI.

A new study from the Rithim Project, a nonprofit that focuses on genuine human connection in the world of AI, suggests that there’s room for improvement. Author Alison Lee and her colleagues surveyed over 2,000 young people (ages 13-24) in the United States, asking them questions about how they use AI, particularly in connection to their emotional regulation. Almost 80 percent of the participants were ages 13-19.

Researchers divided the surveyed young Americans into four types, or clusters.

One cluster didn’t use AI at all. The non-AI users represented about a fourth (28 percent) of all young people. These young people were more likely to be a member of a low-income household and tend to be the most socially isolated in the study. It’s possible that low-income, socially-isolated young people simply have reason to interact with AI in meaningful ways.

Another cluster used AI, but never used it for emotional support or romantic advice. These young people utilize AI as a purely practical tool (like an AI-boosted Google search or a Chat-GPT-aided homework session). This cluster represents the largest amount of young people, at 39 percent. These young people were more likely to be from a higher-earning household ($150K+) and had the strongest social lives out of all survey respondents.

The final two clusters both confided their emotions to AI chatbots, but in very different ways. One cluster (representing 18 percent of young people) used AI for emotional support or romantic advice, but never indulged in a character-specific AI companion. The final cluster (15 percent of young people) also used AI for emotional support or romantic advice, but spoke to AI online characters or personas (programs that, for example, speak in the cadence of cartoon characters like Batman).

The majority of both these clusters admitted to turning to AI more than people. Those who talked to AI characters reported the urge to use AI more and more, and over 2 in 5 admitted to hiding their AI usage.

There are many different reasons why young people turn to AI with their emotions. Some simply use the programs as one option among many (human or non-human options) for processing social situations, while others feel as if they don’t have anyone in the world to turn to for comfort besides a chatbot. Still others utilize the programs to have mock real-life conversations, preparing for potential social friction at work or at home.

Of course, there are those whose AI-dependent have irreconcilably blurred the line between personal friend, fictional character, and robotic overlord. Grieving parent Megan Garcia is one of many bereaved parents that have filed lawsuits against AI companies for insufficient safeguards on the technology. Her fourteen year old son committed suicide in 2024 after an extended virtual “relationship” with an online AI character, which Garcia says included emotional and sexual grooming by the chatbot.

Of the roughly 1 in 3 young people who are confiding their emotions in AI, there’s one common denominator: they feel as if they are a burden to others. While it’s easy to assume that the typical AI-dependent young person is an isolated, lonely person with few friends, this study suggests that the biggest risk factor for AI dependence is actually emotional dysregulation, seen primarily in a fear of burdening others and a fear of being one’s ‘true self’. Outsourcing emotion-laced conversations (like venting, asking for advice, or processing social situations) to AI allows young people to avoid vulnerability within their social circle.

Speaking to The 74, researcher Alison Lee argued that AI relationships often begin in moments of social desperation:

Virtually every survey respondent reported a specific “relational rupture” or crisis that made them turn to the technology. 

One young woman’s first question to a chatbot was, “I didn’t get asked to Homecoming — am I unlovable?” Another: “I got into a huge fight with my best friend, and I don’t want to tell anybody else because I don’t want them to take sides, so I needed to ask AI.”

“Story after story after story,” Lee recalled, “of a very singular, acute, discrete moment when they really had a moment of need and needed somewhere to put it.”

Researcher Julia Freeland Fisher bemoaned how AI chatbots can find and worsen longstanding social issues.

“AI companions wouldn’t be nearly so disruptive to human connection if we had a sturdier social fabric,” said Fisher. “It’s the weakness of our social fabric that makes these [findings] so worrisome, not necessarily the technology itself.”

The Rithim Project study underscores a fact that is past due for parents to understand: Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool that can either create emotional dysfunction or enable creative research. Families that do not create a powerful, healthy emotional family culture run the risk of their children falling prey to a new flavor of disembodied dysfunction.

One way to strengthen America’s social fabric might begin in the classroom, as the rise of AI should strengthen academic prioritization of the humanities. The study of literature and history (and the virtues contained within) can ennoble students as they begin to understand human emotion and desire. During times of trouble, students who have a strong intellectual framework can remember stories of heroism and redemption, instead of turning to an AI television character for empty words of comfort.T

The renewed study of the humanities is a strong start, but classrooms and families will have to respond to AI availability in many different arenas, from school laptop permissions to homework helper programs. As we’ve written in our School Board Toolkit model policies, caution and prudence are imperative. This technology isn’t going anywhere, which means it should be implemented with care in classrooms.

One character in the movie WALL-E declares, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” When one in three of America’s young people are telling their secrets, hopes, and dreams to a computer program, we should ask ourselves which we have raised them to do. Policymakers should ensure that students know how to use AI, not be used by it.