{"id":10289,"date":"2026-04-16T15:52:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/teens-ai-chatbot-characterai\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:52:36","slug":"teens-ai-chatbot-characterai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/teens-ai-chatbot-characterai\/","title":{"rendered":"Teens Alarmed at What AI Is Doing to Their Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s a strange dynamic emerging around artificial intelligence. Research has shown that young people \u2014 who are typically the first adopters of new technology like MP3 players and the internet \u2014 are actually the most skeptical of AI<\/a>. In fact, many teens seem to have deep concerns over AI chatbots rotting their frontal lobes.<\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> out of Drexel University shows just how self-aware the kids have become. In a wide-ranging survey of hundreds of Reddit posts, a team of information scientists found that adolescent users of AI chatbots are increasingly conscious of the negative side effects the tech is having on their lives, even as they sometimes display signs of intense addiction.<\/p>\n

According to the study, many teens begin using AI \u2014 particularly the infamously addictive Character.AI<\/a> \u2014 for entertainment or personal comfort, but inevitably find themselves overly attached and reliant. Across 318 posts about using Character.AI, the <\/strong>researchers found evidence of all six factors correlated to behavioral addiction: conflicting desires, salience or emotional attachment, withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, and mood modification.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate how much this has affected me, but no matter how much I want to quit or at least take a break, I feel like I can\u2019t because it\u2019s gotten to the point where I feel like I\u2019ll go crazy without it,\u201d reads one of the posts they examined. Another teen wrote that \u201cI want to have my normal brain back, where I can just deal with my emotions on my own and not have to rely on the bots to make me feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n

That self-awareness is striking, especially as teens describe how hard it is to stay off Character.AI despite being keenly aware of its harms. \u201cAt fifteen, I feel I should be living my life rather than constantly being on this app,\u201d one of the posts surveyed admits. \u201cI struggle with self-control and often find myself reinstalling it shortly after trying to quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Namvarpour, the study\u2019s lead author, said that the uniquely recursive nature<\/a> of these AI chatbots is one of the key factors that makes them so hard to quit. (While countries like China have begun regulating<\/a> the kinds of interactions AI chatbots can have with kids and teens, the US, where the study was based, has been deeply resistant to similar measures.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes this especially tricky is that chatbots are interactive and emotionally responsive, so the experience can feel more like a relationship than a tool,\u201d Namvarpour said. \u201cBecause of that, stepping away is not just stopping a habit, it can feel like distancing from something meaningful, which makes overreliance harder to recognize and address.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on AI: <\/strong>A Staggering Proportion of High School Kids Are Using AI to Do Their Homework, Which Is Probably Not Going to End Well<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Teens Alarmed at What AI Is Doing to Their Minds<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s a strange dynamic emerging around artificial intelligence. Research has shown that young people \u2014 who are typically the first adopters of new technology like MP3 players and the internet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3449,3841,3844,466],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-brain","category-ethics","category-health-medicine","category-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}