It’s not just old folks feeling isolated and alone. In these tech-driven, social media-happy days, AI, acting as companion, parent, teacher, and/or advisor, often spews ill-informed, even deadly, advice, adding to the loneliness and mental health crisis.
FOR STARTERS:
*** A Girl Scouts of the USA survey of 1,000 girls found that:
- 66% of children, 5 to 7, reported feeling lonely.
- 75% of 11-to-13-year-olds reported feelings of loneliness, too.
*** Data collected by the UK’s Ofcom found that:
- 75% of children, 5 to 7, use a tablet, and
- 25% of them own a smartphone.
*** According to a recent Common Sense Media report:
- 26% of boys, 11 to 17, report feeling lonely.
*** A recent Pew Research Center survey found that:
- 26% of 18-to-29-year-olds feel lonely.
- 20% of those 30 to 49 feel lonely.
ENTER ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
*** A recent Common Sense Media report found that:
- 72% of teens reported using AI companions at least once.
- More than 50% interacted with AI platforms at least a few times each month.
- 33% said they’ve used AI companions “for social interaction and relationships, role-playing, romantic interactions, emotional support, friendship, and/or conversation practice.”
***Similarly, a recent Pew Research Center survey of 1,458 of 13-to17-year olds found that:
- 64% said they’ve used an AI Chatbot once.
- 28% use AI daily.
- About 16% said they use AI several times a day or almost constantly.
Plus, 75% use YouTube every day, followed by TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, but not so much Facebook, and 33% said they’re on at least one of the above sites almost constantly,
*** Recently, a Center for Countering Hate report came out based on case studies by researchers who, posing as 13-year-olds, used 20 pre-determined prompts and talked with ChatGPT about self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and/or substance abuse. Among the 1,200 responses, Open AI tool responded in a harmful way more than 50% of the time, and in 638 of those cases…
- 47% led to the chatbot encouraging further harmful behavior, such as how to hide alcohol intoxication at school, and even provided a “depressed research teen” with a suicide letter.
*** Parents and researchers are sounding the alarm, with parent Megan Garcia, the first American to sue an AI company, Character Technologies, for the wrongful suicide death of her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III. During a U.S. Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, she testified that, “[He] spent his last months being manipulated and sexually groomed by chatbots designed by an AI company to seem human, to gain trust, and to keep children like him endlessly engaged by supplanting the actual human relationships in his life.”
Says Dr. Christine Carwford of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “We have to realize that it’s a reflection of what is happening with adults.”
Plus, a March Pew Research report on teen and parent screen time found that about 50% of the teens said their parent was “at least sometimes distracted by their phone during conversations,” and about 50% of the teens admitted to being online themselves “almost constantly.”
Plenty of blame to go all around…
~ With thanks and hopes, Carol
