Research on the online behaviour of children and adolescents shows that young people suffering from anxiety disorders or generally low mental well-being often look for solutions to their problems on the Internet. They also use generative artificial intelligence tools for this purpose, and this was the subject of multidisciplinary research by scientists from Lodz.
They conducted the study on a group of more than 400 young people aged nine to 14 (45.5% were boys, 48.8% were girls and 5.7% did not declare their gender). In collaboration with child psychologists and educationalists, as well as the survey participants themselves, a pool of questions was created from six categories:
- physiological needs,
- the need for security,
- the need to belong and be loved,
- the need for recognition,
- the need for self-realisation,
- everyday activities and passions.
The study was carried out in a computer laboratory and the children were guaranteed full anonymity. We asked them to write down questions they would like AI to answer. We analysed the questions we received and matched them to the created categories, using Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs. We then measured the psychological well-being of individual children
– says Dr hab. Artur Modliński, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Cybercommunication Research at the Faculty of Management, University of Lodz.
The children most often wanted to ask generative AI about daily activities and passions (25%) and physiological needs (20%). The least frequent were the questions about the needs for love and belonging (11%) and self-realisation (11%).
The research has shown that:
- children who chose questions related to psychological needs and safety were characterised by significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than those who asked about daily activities and passions;
- children who chose questions about love and belonging tended to have more psychological problems than the group more concerned with physiological needs;
- children trying to find answers from generative AI to questions related to love and belonging, and those relating to respect and appreciation, had significantly lower levels of mental wellbeing than children wanting to ask about self-realisation and personal interests.
The results of our study are important because they allow for the preliminary design and testing of conversational systems for young people that would signal potential educational challenges or lowered mood. Considering how many young people currently suffer from neuroses, anxiety and depression, designing systems that alert caregivers to potential problems is extremely important
– underline Dr Artur Modliński and Dr Ada Florentyna Pawlak.
The results obtained by the researchers from Lodz are already being used to create these conversational systems. This is, among other things, what the team from the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Cybercommunication Research at the University of Lodz, headed by Dr hab. Artur Modliński, deals with. The Centre is also involved in conductingscientific research and disseminating its results among international teams of experts in the field of digital management and artificial intelligence.
The co-author of the study, Dr Ada Florentyna Pawlak is a technology anthropologist and a founder of Polskie Stowarzyszenie Transhumanistyczne [Polish Transhumanist Association].
The research of the scientists from Lodz was presented at the 11th Machine Intelligence and Digital Interaction MIDI Conference, which was held in Warsaw in December 2023, and has now been published in the post-conference materials by Springer.
Source: Dr hab. Artur Modliński
Edit: Michał Strzelec, Communications and PR Centre. University of Lodz
Adobe's generative artificial intelligence tools were used to create the graphic.