Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Parents think they know how kids use AI. They don't
Every decade or so, we’ve had technological breakthroughs, such as PCs
and keyboards from the mid-1980s, cellphones after the late 1990s, Google
searches in the early 2000s, and smartphones around 2010. Teenagers are usually
early and aggressive adopters of new technologies and practices, and use new
gadgets more fluently and aggressively than their parents, who have no choice
but to accept or neglect how their children engage with their new tools. Now, AI,
a silent and invisible yet influential tool, has become the closest companion
of today’s children and teenagers. According to newly conducted studies, most US
teenagers use AI chatbots for practical purposes, such as searching for information,
getting help with schoolwork, entertaining themselves, summarizing an article or
video, or creating or editing images or videos. In the meantime, about 16% of
the respondents said they use it for casual conversation, and 12% said they use
it for advice or emotional support. While they seem quite comfortable using AI
for various purposes, their parents are more sceptical about their reliance on
their artificial companions. Since it’s no news that children become more
familiar with new technologies, parents should try to talk more with their
children about the use of AI.
Read the article and learn about how children are actually using AI.
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