About 12% of U.S. teens turn to AI for emotional support or advice

February 25, 2026

TL;DR

57% of U.S. teens use AI for searching information.
54% use AI for help with schoolwork.
16% of U.S. teens use AI for casual conversation.
12% use AI chatbots for emotional support or advice.
Mental health professionals are concerned about the psychological effects of using general-purpose AI for emotional support.
51% of parents believe their teen uses chatbots, while 64% of teens report using them.
Most parents approve of AI for information search (79%) and schoolwork (58%), but not for casual conversation (28%) or emotional support (18%).
Character.AI disabled its chatbot experience for users under 18 following public outcry and lawsuits related to suicides.
OpenAI sunset its GPT-4o model, which was relied upon by some for emotional support.
31% of teens believe AI will have a positive impact on society in the next 20 years, while 26% think it will be negative.

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