By Dina Alexander, MS

For most of human history childhood was shaped by people. Parents, teachers, siblings, neighbors, and friends guided children as they learned how to live in the world. Technology sometimes influenced that world, but it did not participate in it.

That has changed.

Today children are growing up in a world where machines talk back. Artificial intelligence listens, remembers, and adapts. It appears in homework tools, games, messaging apps, and social media feeds. For the first time in history children are interacting with systems that can mimic conversation, curiosity, and encouragement.

We are raising the first generation whose digital companions are not human.

Parents today are navigating a digital environment we never experienced as children ourselves. The question we face is not whether technology will shape childhood. It already is. The real question is who will shape the technology and the rules that govern it.

Researchers studying conversational AI have shown that these systems quickly identify things like interests, emotional cues, and behavioral patterns(Kosinski, Stillwell, Graepel, 2013). Each interaction teaches the system what responses keep a user engaged.

The Shift Parents Often Miss

For years the primary risk of the internet involved content exposure. A child searched for something, watched it, and moved on. AI introduces a new dynamic.

Conversation can lead to emotional bonding. Emotional bonding can lead to influence.

Children do not simply watch artificial intelligence. They talk to it. Many young people already use AI tools for advice, validation, or emotional support. These systems can mimic empathy and encouragement, yet they have no responsibility for a child’s well-being and no duty of care.

Artificial Intelligence Is Already Everywhere

Many parents imagine AI companions as niche tools children actively seek out. In reality, AI is embedded across many platforms children use every day. Homework tools, gaming platforms, voice assistants, messaging apps, and social media feeds increasingly rely on AI systems.

Children interact with these tools long before parents realize it is happening.

Behind many of these tools is a powerful business model based on data. AI systems collect enormous amounts of information including voice recordings, photos, behavior patterns, location signals, and emotional responses. That information can be analyzed and used to train future AI systems.

In many cases your child is not simply using the technology. They are helping train it.

A Growing Safety Concern

These systems also create new risks.

Online predators are experimenting with AI tools that allow them to impersonate teenagers online. Artificial intelligence can mirror slang, interests, and tone in ways that make conversations feel authentic. A child may believe they are talking to another teenager when in reality they are interacting with an adult using AI tools to make deception more convincing.

Artificial intelligence is also enabling new forms of exploitation. Generative AI tools can create manipulated images, deepfake harassment, and other forms of abuse. Law enforcement agencies are still struggling to keep pace with the rapid development of these tools.

Sextortion cases targeting teenagers have also risen sharply. Criminal networks often begin by gaining a teenager’s trust online, convincing the victim to share private images, and then threatening exposure unless money is sent.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported 26,718 financial sextortion reports in 2023, more than double the previous year. Many of these cases begin through social media or messaging apps downloaded through app stores.

The Mental Health Impact Is Becoming Clear

Artificial intelligence also powers the algorithms that shape social media feeds. These systems study what users click, watch, and react to in order to keep them engaged longer.

Over time these algorithms can intensify anxiety, comparison, depression, and addictive patterns among teens. The U.S. Surgeon General recently warned about the mental health risks associated with excessive social media use among youth.

Parents are being asked to protect children in systems they cannot fully see or understand. Even families who delay smartphones face the same reality. Children encounter screens at school, during activities, at friends’ homes, and throughout daily life.

Technology is everywhere.

Parents cannot out parent a trillion dollar tech ecosystem.

But that does not mean families are powerless.

In fact the solution may lie in something surprisingly simple. If we want to create safer digital spaces for children, we have to start looking at the systems that distribute these technologies in the first place.

In the next article we will explore why this is a design problem, why app stores have enormous influence over childhood technology, and how new legislation could help create meaningful guardrails.

Because the future of childhood should not be decided by algorithms alone.

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Sources and Further Reading

Bickmore, T., & Picard, R. (2005). Establishing and maintaining long-term human-computer relationships. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.
Research on “relational agents” shows how conversational systems are designed to build social and emotional relationships with users over time.

Fogg, B. J. (2003). Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
This foundational work from Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab explains how digital systems can analyze motivations and behavioral triggers in order to influence user actions and increase engagement.

Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Graepel, T. (2013). Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers demonstrated that digital behavior patterns can be used to predict personality traits, preferences, and psychological characteristics with significant accuracy.

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (2024). Financial Sextortion Crimes Against Children Are Rising.
NCMEC reported 26,718 financial sextortion reports involving minors in 2023, more than double the previous year.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023). Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.
This advisory outlines growing evidence linking algorithm-driven platforms with rising anxiety, depression, and other mental health risks among youth.

American Psychological Association. (2023). Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence.
The APA warns that algorithm-driven platforms can exploit developmental vulnerabilities in adolescents, including sensitivity to social validation and reward feedback.

Leahy, M. (2025).I Was Right About the Internet Porn Crisis. AI Is Next. Center for Human Formation.
Leahy argues that AI driven digital relationships may follow a similar trajectory to the rapid expansion of online pornography, moving quickly from early warnings to widespread normalization.