Children and adolescents are increasingly using AI chatbots to cope with emotional problems, but the association between affective use of AI and mental health is not fully understood.
“Parents often come in, noticing that their child is spending too much time on a screen or is playing too many games online,” Peter Selby, MD, a family physician and addiction specialist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, told Medscape News Canada. “They also may notice a change in behavior or that their child is upset.”
An American study showed that young people don’t reveal their AI use to their primary care or other healthcare provider, Selby added. “So, when the physician provides routine care like immunization, it’s important for them to initiate a conversation regarding how patients are tackling technologies, including AI. It’s essential that they discuss the youth’s mental health as a preview before discussing if they’re using AI for mental health purposes.”
Seeking emotional support from AI is a unique marker of psychological distress in youth, independent of mattering or loneliness, according to a recent cross-sectional study of students in grades 4 through 12 in Ontario. The data were published August 31 in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study included 39,761 students (mean age, 13 years) who reported using AI for affective purposes. About 21% reported using generative AI for emotional support. Female students, gender-diverse students, and students who were Black, Indigenous, or of other racial and ethnic groups besides White were more likely to have used AI for emotional support, compared with boys and White students, respectively. Older students and those who used AI for school reported incrementally higher affective AI use.
In unadjusted models, affective AI use was associated with significantly higher emotional problem scores and a nearly twofold higher prevalence of clinical emotional problems. In fully adjusted models, affective AI use remained associated with emotional problems. In contrast, functional AI use showed a modest dose-response association with emotional problems.
