Younger individuals who flip to AI chatbots for emotional assist or private recommendation could also be extra more likely to expertise severe emotional issues, in keeping with a brand new examine from the College of Ottawa.
The examine checked out survey responses from 39,761 college students in grades 4 to 12 throughout 4 Ontario college boards, carried out between Might 2025 and March 2026 as a part of the Ontario Well being and Peer Relations Research.
About 21% of the scholars mentioned that they had used an AI chatbot to speak about their emotions or get recommendation about relationships with mates, household or others. Notably, college students who typically used AI for schoolwork had been additionally extra seemingly to make use of it for emotional assist.
Even after researchers thought-about components corresponding to age, gender, loneliness and using AI for schoolwork, college students who used AI for emotional assist had been nonetheless 26% extra more likely to present indicators of significant emotional difficulties.
“This doesn’t suggest that AI is inflicting these struggles. As a substitute, utilizing AI on this method may be an indication that a youngster wants extra human connection and assist,” defined Kamilla Bonnesen, a postdoctoral fellow on the Mind and Behaviour Lab on the College of Ottawa.
Amongst college students who used AI for emotional assist, 57.7% had been discovered to have severe emotional difficulties, in contrast with 29.2% of scholars who didn’t use AI for emotional assist. Those that used AI on this method additionally reported feeling extra lonely and fewer valued by others.
Nonetheless, the examine doesn’t show that utilizing AI causes emotional issues, because the analysis checked out college students at one cut-off date; it isn’t clear whether or not younger individuals with emotional difficulties usually tend to flip to AI, or whether or not utilizing AI might make their issues worse.
“When a scholar is popping to AI for emotional causes, it is a good alternative to start out an open, nonjudgmental dialog,” suggested Tracy Vaillancourt, a professor within the College of Ottawa’s School of Training. “It’s a probability to reconnect a struggling scholar with significant human assist.”
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