Some student uses of AI are associated with worse mental health and well-being outcomes, concludes a report from the JED Foundation, a nonprofit focused on supporting youth mental health.
Students who use AI for friendship or companionship or who seek help from AI when they’re struggling emotionally are more likely to have symptoms of anxiety and depression, loneliness, and a history of suicidal thoughts and attempts than students who do not use the technology for those purposes, the report found.
It also found that many students use AI when they’re feeling sad, stressed, lonely, or overwhelmed. Students report using it because they feel lonely, want to talk but nobody else is available, or they are trying to figure out how to explain or understand their emotions.
The report is an analysis of JED’s student survey, collected between October 2025 to April 2026 from 5,560 middle and high school students in 21 schools in the United States.
“We know that young people are using AI,” said Kayla Anderson, the vice president of research and evaluation for the JED Foundation and the report’s author. “But we really don’t know a lot about what that use looks like in terms of their emotional well-being and health, and we don’t know really how that use correlates to indicators of mental health, well-being, history of suicidal ideation and attempts.”
In an interview with Education Week, Anderson discussed why it’s important to know why and how young people are using AI and how schools can help them navigate the fast-evolving technology.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Why is it important to examine how the use of AI might be affecting young people?
We know that young people’s brains develop through their mid-20s. When you’re thinking about young people, particularly middle and high school students, that’s a really critical period of brain and relationship development when people are learning how to build their emotional skills, identifying their emotions, working on regulating their emotions, building coping skills, figuring out how to navigate problems with peers. There’s all of this development that really sets the stage for people’s emotional well-being and cognitive functioning throughout their entire lifespan.
There are these questions in the field about whether AI use is diminishing people’s ability to have those critical skills. If you’re asking AI to come up with problem-solving advice for you, or do your critical thinking for you, there are questions about what that means in the long term for young people’s brain development, and then what that means for them across the lifespan.
Did any findings surprise you?
The first one is: More than a majority of young people reporting that they’re using AI when they’re experiencing difficult emotions, but only a really small proportion say they’re using it to get help. That makes a lot of sense when you actually start thinking about it, because there’s a connotation around getting help that means [seeking legitimate professional help, not AI advice].
The other finding that I was really interested in was the one around the different associations [whether they were negative or had no difference] between AI use and well-being outcomes. Because what this really speaks to is that it’s not sufficient to say we shouldn’t or we should use AI. It’s not a black and white conversation.
This is very early research, but it really does seem to matter what young people are doing with AI, which then opens the question of, what is it also replacing, or what is it about young people who are using AI in this way? Maybe there’s something there, they’re maybe already vulnerable, or there’s just things that we need to really think about when we’re thinking about their emotional well-being.
It gives the field a direction of continuing to talk about the uses of AI and what it means for relationship-building and cognitive development. It’s a more nuanced answer than “don’t use AI” or “yes, use AI.” It really has to be centered around what you’re using it for, what that means in the context of your life, and then going forward from there.
What do you want educators to take away from this report?
In general, using AI as a friend or companion to build that relationship and problem-solving advice, that’s ultimately likely not going to support your well-being. It’s so important to think about strategies and support you need in real life, and obviously that means that the structures have to be in place for young people to have real life support.
From a broader standpoint, we know that these tools need systemic intervention to ensure that they’re safe, that they’re ready for young people to use, that they are going to support young people’s development and not weaken it. There are a number of things that are important there, including things for the technology industry where we really need safeguards.
How can schools help students navigate this technology?
We know that schools and all the people within them, whether that be a teacher or an administrator or any of the incredible support staff, all of those people have the potential to be deeply trusted adults for young people. If young people have deep human connections that they trust, they will be more likely to talk to a human in their life—a parent or caregiver, but it also could be an educator—about their experiences. It’s really important to acknowledge that educators are trusted sources for young people.
The other piece that is really important is thinking about how a school system can support literacy in the context of AI use: how you can support safe and effective use, and know how to talk about what may and may not be safe online. Schools are already amazing places of skill-building of health literacy, and this is a place for [AI literacy], too.
I also want to acknowledge that this work can’t just be on educators. To ensure young people are safe in the context of AI use and we’re supporting their well-being, we have to support young people in all of the places where they spend their time, whether that be at home, at school, in the community, online.
I want to make sure that you hear me say there’s a place for educators, absolutely, and then we have to ensure that those educators receive support and that young people receive support holistically, as well.
