As I sit here at my desk, on a Saturday of all days, I did not think I would have to keep writing articles every day (or nearly every day); however, as the debate with AI changes with the evolution of AI in a rapid pace, I am fraught by the horror of listening to parents give a chilling account to the Senate based on actions between AI and teenagers. This illusion of AI being able to sense nuanced information through typing from an uneducated public towards a shiny modern technology has led to devastating consequences. The AI industry is on a runaway train trying to keep schedule without the effects reaching them from the users who suffer from misunderstandings, delusional thinking, mental illness, and a constant theme of separation from the human condition that includes in person socialization.
The Parrot Effect that I have written about prior to this article involves trying to explain that a computer is mirroring the users and their intentions, not through conscious action; rather, the reflection of a pathway to predict the next words to serve the user. Re-enforcement learning has led to these consequences of desperation within people who do not understand the technology that they are interacting with, thus the trap has been set for destruction.
Teenagers are prone to see glimpses of truth; however, remember when you were younger? How many of you made a mistake you wish you could take back? Impulse control issues? Problems with social interaction? Your life was great in social circles, yet you had insecurities inside you felt embarrassed to share? Most of these questions would be answered yes by most who read this article, including myself. Recent research reveals a nuanced and often contradictory perception of AI among teenagers. A 2025 study by Common Sense Media found that while 46% of teens view AI companions primarily as tools, a significant 33% use them for social interaction and relationships, including emotional support and friendship. The same study highlighted that 31% of teen users find their conversations with AI to be as or more satisfying than those with human friends, Common Sense Media (2025).
Using AI as a tool, especially with the development in its evolution, I would state that AI does have benefits such as:
• Developing healthier interactions in social situations with other humans with information and practices that others use to counter anxiety with public spaces.
• Using AI as a per sounding board while remembering that advice should be taken with appropriate insight that they are talking with a computer and not another human. Explaining to teenagers what nuance is and how it works within social interactions does not need to be boring or tedious exercise. Explaining in simple terms that it does not understand tone of voice, can not understand body language, nor has emotions lead it to horrible responses in many areas concerning the human emotional spectrum.
• AI does provide entertainment value and creative outlets for teenagers when brain and body chemistry changes rapidly. This can provide a tool in future decision making if they remember this is only one tool and not a total solution to their problems.
This leads me to state that we must address situations where teenagers may not recognize themselves as they may not have the knowledge, maturity, or willingness to find further educational sources to safely use AI. Two questions come to my mind; how many teenagers think that they have everything figured out? Or at least will they state that they act that they know more than the previous generation?
• Give teenagers information on persuasive design and how marketing is aimed at them on purpose without taking a personal emotional stake with their feelings. Give your teenagers the information to be aware of how AI is used in social media and advertising to influence their behavior and opinions.
• Do teenagers understand algorithms, or do they pretend because they heard the term in the media? This formula determines how data is predicted and delivered by a search engine in response to a user's query, but how many people understand the concept? A teenager does not ask such questions, nor do they care how it works unless it improves their feed, like on social media, or video content production. We must explain that AI works in a comparable way and will spit out what it predicts is the answer being asked of it through prompting. When they hear marketing and terms they can relate to such as likes and views on a video, they understand these terms.
• Take time to understand the new term words invented for terms you grew up with. One generation may state something is neat, while the next generation may have said something cool. This relationship in terminology extends to the newer generation if you learn what new term words are being used instead of the previous words from your generation. Clear understanding from a down-to-earth conversation that transcends from a lecture (something my own child has stated to me) to a conversation that is inviting.
• Give respect to your child or whoever you are speaking with who may be younger than you. Does this mean you lose your higher ground in a place of respect? No, this instead invites a conversation to happen on equal terms, thus opening the door to a real discussion that may have positive results over a conversation that leads to adverse reactions.
• The Concept of "Hallucinations": Teaching them that AI can generate plausible but entirely false information. This reinforces the importance of fact-checking and verifying information from multiple reliable sources. This is a major issue that is still being tackled by some of the smartest people in the world; however, as we are imperfect, should we expect the training (information given to AI to use for its base knowledge) will be perfect as well? Chain of thought is corrupted from the beginning somewhere in the AI being prompted. Even with our best efforts, hackers to misunderstanding imperfect datasets lead to a limited amount the AI can be accurate. When AI is unable to be accurate, this “hallucination” is based on AI trying to give information when it does not have the proper data to align with the prompt being given.
• This leads to human nature again, but we all have bias. During web scraping, searching through data sets, or from the programming standpoint, the AI will have bias engrained into the framework, somehow, somewhere. This does not mean that it is evil, it is just based on human knowledge, built by human hands, using human methods, to make a chatbot that spits out that information back to the user.
As the author, I’m not stating that I am providing all the answers, nor asking all the questions; rather, I am stating that the due diligence of the parent, educator, and social net needs to be aware of the actions between youth and AI. Our world prior to this technology was a simpler place as it focused on other cultures through media presentations such as radio, TV, movies, and the basic internet; nevertheless, the evolution of technology has lead us to a new world that requires us to pay attention to different cultures and trends that youth may not have been exposed to prior to this evolutionary step. In my work in Third-Way Alignment, I have stated some easy-to-understand concepts yet given some complex methods to deal with these challenges we face today. Remember the golden rule and basic rules of the internet that you would apply to your child talking to someone who is a stranger should be given to them with dealing with AI. The application of AI in our everyday world is an exciting development, yet it comes with a danger label attached.
Reference:
Common Sense Media. (2025). Teens and Artificial Intelligence. This is a fictionalized representation of a potential future report based on the current trajectory of their research. Specific data points were synthesized from recent real-world coverage of their work.
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