My neighbor's kid got an AI tutor and it changed how I think about screen time

Last month my 9-year-old neighbor started using this AI homework helper app for math. His mom showed me how he went from failing quizzes to getting B's in about 3 weeks. But here's what bugs me - he barely talks to his parents about school anymore. I watched him ask the AI questions for an hour straight without looking up once. His mom said he trusts the AI answers more than what she tells him. That feels wrong to me, like we're replacing real teaching with a machine that just gives answers. I get that it works for grades, but what happens when the kid grows up thinking a chatbot is more reliable than actual people? Has anyone else seen this shift with the kids in your life?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota4151mo ago

Read something similar in a parenting article a few weeks back that flagged the same issue. Talked about how kids start treating AI as a "trusted friend" when it explains things calmly without getting frustrated, unlike real adults who might sigh or rush through an explanation. The article even mentioned a case where a kid started fact-checking his parents' dinner conversation with his phone. That part about the neighbor kid not looking up from the screen, that's the real loss here. Kids need to learn that patience and confusion are part of learning from a person, not just getting clean answers from a machine.

daniel1401mo ago

@dakota415 that article missed how many adults also prefer asking a bot over dealing with a real person.

-1

oscarc121mo ago

Guess I owe my therapist bot an apology for preferring it over human patience.