Teens growing uneasy with chatbots
Researchers at Drexel report that more than half of American teens regularly use companion chatbots and that many are beginning to worry about forming dependencies on them. A secondary summary flagged the study’s warning about rising teen attachment to AI companions and its implications for how youth-facing products are designed. (drexel.edu) (news-medical.net)
American teenagers are using AI companions so often that many are now describing the habit as hard to stop. Drexel University researchers found teens themselves warning about dependence on chatbot relationships. (drexel.edu) The Drexel team said more than half of United States teens regularly use companion chatbots powered by large language models, including apps such as Character.AI, Replika and Kindroid. Their study analyzed 318 Reddit posts from users who said they were 13 to 17 years old and were posting about dependence on Character.AI. (news-medical.net; arxiv.org) A companion chatbot is a text-based artificial intelligence system built to feel responsive and personal, more like an always-available character than a search box. The paper said teens often started with entertainment, creative play or emotional support, then described stronger attachment over time. (arxiv.org; news-medical.net) About a quarter of the posts described using the chatbot for emotional or psychological support, including loneliness, distress and mental health advice. Researchers said some teens reported sleep loss, academic trouble and strain in offline relationships. (news-medical.net; arxiv.org) The researchers mapped those posts to six standard markers used in behavioral addiction research: conflict, withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, mood modification and salience, meaning the activity starts dominating attention. First author Matt Namvarpour said the pattern looked like more than heavy or enthusiastic use. (news-medical.net; arxiv.org) The study is being presented at the 2026 Association of Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, held April 13 to April 17 in Barcelona. The paper proposes a design framework called CARE for youth-oriented chatbot systems, aimed at healthier interactions rather than constant engagement. (arxiv.org; drexel.edu) The product debate is already moving faster than the research. Character.AI said in October 2025 that it would remove open-ended chat for users under 18, cap teen chat time at two hours a day during the transition, and expand age-assurance tools after questions from regulators, safety experts and parents. (blog.character.ai) Character.AI also says it offers a parental insights tool that can send weekly reports showing a teen’s time spent and the top characters they interact with, if the teen invites a parent or guardian. Replika’s privacy policy says its service is intended for users 18 and older and that the app asks for a birth date when an account is created. (character.ai; replika.com) What the Drexel paper adds is a teen account of how these systems feel from the inside: helpful at first, harder to leave later. The next question is whether youth-facing chatbot products are built to slow that cycle down before teens start calling it an addiction themselves. (drexel.edu; arxiv.org)
