American teens have lost their faith in Big Tech, according to a new report from Common Sense Media, a nonprofit offering reviews and ratings for media and technology, which more recently includes AI products.
In the study released Wednesday, the organization surveyed over 1,000 teens on whether major technology companies like Google, Apple, Meta, TikTok, and Microsoft cared about their well-being and safety, made ethical decisions, protected their private data, and more. In all cases, a majority of teens reported low levels of trust in these tech companies. Nearly half of teens said they had little or no trust that the companies would make responsible decisions about how they use AI.
Distrust in Big Tech has been building in the U.S. for years, from the 2013 revelation of the government’s mass data collection, to the data scandal involving consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, to the 2021 Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s leaks indicating Meta was aware of its harms on society, to the multiple Congressional hearings where lawmakers grilled Big Tech CEOs over app safety, antitrust issues, and harmful algorithms.
This year, tech CEOs lined up to pledge allegiance to the Trump administration in the form of $1 million donations to the president’s inaugural fund, hoping to buy favor and avoid scrutiny and regulation of their businesses — no matter the cost to their users. (Even for those aligned with Trump, the tech leaders’ actions are seen as disingenuous, given how they’ve flip-flopped after previously criticizing Trump in his earlier term.)
While teens may or may not track these tech news headlines as closely as their adult counterparts, this overall shift in sentiment is affecting them, too.
Common Sense says that 64% of surveyed U.S. teens don’t trust Big Tech companies to care about their mental health and well-being and 62% don’t think the companies will protect their safety if it hurts profits.
Over half of surveyed U.S. teens (53%) also don’t think major tech companies make ethical and responsible design decisions (think: the growing use of dark patterns in user interface design meant to trick, confuse, and deceive.
A further 52% don’t think that Big Tech will keep their personal information safe and 51% don’t think the companies are fair and inclusive when considering the needs of different users.
Not surprisingly, the mistrust in tech is influencing teens’ opinions around AI, too, as 47% of those surveyed don’t believe these companies will make responsible decisions over their use of AI.
The new study builds on Common Sense’s prior research about the adoption of generative AI among teens and also focuses on how GenAI is impacting the larger media landscape.
For instance, it found that 41% of surveyed teens reported being misled by fake images online, 35% were misled by fake online content in general, and over a quarter (28%) wondered if they were talking to a bot or a human. A third of teens also said that GenAI would make it even harder to trust the accuracy of online information. That figure rises to 40% if the teens had previously been duped by fake or misleading content.
Overall, the report points to a lack of uncertainty over online content, though that’s hardly a new problem for the web.
Still, it seems that AI isn’t helping the matter despite AI chatbots’ authoritative answers. Some 39% of surveyed teens noticed problems with AI’s output when using it for schoolwork help. Plus, a majority of surveyed U.S. teens (74%) said privacy safeguards and transparency are needed to manage AI, 74% said AI companies should discourage people from sharing personal information on their platform, and 73% of teens said AI images and other content should be labeled and watermarked.
When weighing in on the business models of AI, 61% of teens felt that content creators should be compensated when their data is used by AI systems.
As a result of teens’ lack of trust and the fast pace of AI development, 35% of teens think GenAI will make it harder to trust online information — though that number could change in time.
