AI is replacing Google for kids—and we have no idea what it's doing to their brains
Study: Young users (9 to 18Y) ditch Google for AI, with unknown consequences
A review of 173 international studies found that generative AI has a dual effect on students' critical thinking and problem-solving: it helps when used to challenge and question, but harms when it becomes a shortcut to answers. The research also revealed major gaps—80% of studies involved university students, not children—while Norwegian data shows Google use among 9- to 18-year-olds dropped from 72% to 47% in two years.
If AI takes over the thinking process before pupils have had time to develop their own skills for critical thinking and problem solving, the consequences could be completely different for them than for adults.
- lordnacho
AI is my default for just about any search now. From today:
How did Cantor come up with his diagonal proof? It seems to have been dreamed out of nowhere
Why are there advertisements for a shampoo containing caffeine? Does caffeine do something useful other than when you drink it?
What happens in sense and sensibility?
All of them give a decent answer, with the ability to ask follow ups. Eg, how does S&S compare with Pride and Prejudice? What about more recent novels connecting romantic choices with economic choices?
All of them give you links to source material, in case you suspect they are just making it up.
At the start of the millennium, Google search changed everything about how I look for information. Now it seems outdated.
- rickdeckard
Somehow a homemade problem for Google.
I never asked them to waste additional resources by injecting my blunt keyword-query into an AI-cluster and guesstimate a well-formed article from that.
But here I am, with (elder) relatives sending me Google search-results on topics like they are proper articles...
- jstummbillig
> "with unknown consequences"
Beautiful. I shall consider suffixing every random observation I have or action I take with that, for an extra infusion of ominosity and importance.
- brabel
Even Google itself is now just asking AI. Usually the AI summary Google returns is more useful than the links. I get really annoyed when I query something and no AI summary is given as the links it returns these days are trash.
- joefourier
I use LLMs every day as a search engine replacement, but I’m concerned about this because there’s a vast gulf of capabilities between different models, or even the same models with different reasoning depths.
Back in the day everyone had essentially the same Google, and there was no concept of paying to get better search results. But now the average family is going to rely on the ad-ridden ChatGPT Free tier which is more likely to be wrong, less in depth, with additional commercial incentives. It’s only a minority of adults now that pays for frontier models, and how many are letting their children have access?
You can see this divide right now with medical advice for instance. If you have access to ChatGPT 6 Pro (only available for the $100/month tier I think), it will research Pubmed etc and give you a careful measured answer that likely reflects the latest medical consensus, while a casual user relying on Google AI might be told to eat toilet paper to relieve constipation: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1wmbn87/a_pt_show...
- ketzu
Funny enough, I believe when SEO pivots to prioritizing Ai, Google results will get better again. Currently there is probably no way Google can tune their search that won't be gamed by SEO abusers.
- oliwarner
I still default to Google, but honestly, it's getting close.
The quality of Google has dropped precipitously. Their AI answers are often a horrible misunderstanding of my query, and the SERPs are filled with ads, preferred content providers and sites that have successfully spammed their way to victory despite having no content on the item I'm searching for (fandom has a billion skeleton sites that just hoover up traffic).
LLMs are often wrong, but they feel like they understand. The UX of not having to fight your way to this stop is dramatically more pleasant.
It's hard to see how Google got so bad at this. Perhaps it's a deliberate enshittification to push people at Gemini but it's been sagging so long now I think it's just their trajectory.
- tonmoy
Top of Google’s page is just a worse version of AI, followed by three or four sponsored result, then SEO optimized crap and finally what I’m looking for is probably near bottom of the results page- I’m not surprised at young people ditching Google