Artificial intelligence (AI) has been rapidly adopted by teens and adolescents as a source of information and entertainment. While recent public furor has mainly focused on AI's ability to write essays or help students on school assignments, a more intimate trend has emerged: the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to seek advice, relationships, and even mental health care in the form of AI chatbots or companions.
Hoggard et al. (Sun,) studied this question.