There are too many harms to count in exposing young people to computers in the classroom and at home — and now AI! I remember years ago sitting with the head of school and head of the board from a Jewish school who were explaining how excited they were to introduce iPads to the students at their school.
They saw this as progressive, advanced, a selling point for their educational offerings. To me it was obviously foolish — there should be less tech, not more! Now parents in greater numbers are seeing it that way.
“No Healthy Attachment” to AI
Writing in the New York Post, our colleague Andrew McDiarmid interviewed psychologist Sherry Turkle:
After years of fighting to get controversial curricula and smartphones out of classrooms, it’s time for parents to suit up again for a new battle over their children’s education: artificial-intelligence chatbots.
“Once introduced, chatbots push against all boundaries,” writes MIT psychologist Dr. Sherry Turkle, a pioneer in the study of human interactions with machines. In her new book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” she declares a state of emergency over our growing use of chatbots as friends, lovers and therapists.
Turkle told The Post that she’s especially concerned about the impact on young people, whose intellectual and social capacities are still developing.
“For a young child and a teenager, there is no healthy attachment to an AI companion,” she warns.
When AI talks back, it doesn’t take long to get personal. What starts as a request for information can soon morph into something more intimate. A discussion about Mayan customs could turn into a frank exchange about religious beliefs. A passing remark about classmates might end as a therapy session for an anxious teen. With an Internet full of training data, chatbots can easily overcome a student’s willpower and focus.
According to a 2026 study from Common Sense Media, 70% of teens report using AI for schoolwork. The most popular tool? Multi-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok. But when it comes to kids’ social skills, these lovable LLMs may be doing more harm than good.
Seventy percent actually sounds low to me.
This is a struggle going back to before anyone worried about AI. One of my worst decisions as a parent was to allow an XBOX into the house. Remember those, the addictive video game console? They seem so quaint now. A child had asked for it — or was willing to accept a fun experience with amateur skydiving as an alternative. Given those as the choices, I should have let him jump out of the plane.