Like Parent, Like Teen: AI Usage Patterns Reveal Striking Parallels Across Generations
Authors:
November 2024
About half of American adults under age 60 and about half of teenagers have never used artificial intelligence.
A NORC Spotlight on Education survey powered by AmeriSpeak® finds that American teenagers use artificial intelligence (AI) at about the same rate as adults under age 60. This unexpected result comes from the AmeriSpeak Teen Omnibus and AmeriSpeak Omnibus, which jointly allow us to compare the opinions of U.S. teenagers and adults. Half of adults aged 18-59 and 45 percent of teenagers (aged 13-17) have never used AI. Eighty percent of baby boomers (aged 60+) have not used AI.
Americans use AI for editing, writing, and summarizing.
The Spotlight found that adults aged 18-59 are using AI in fairly similar ways to how teens use it for school. The top uses among adults aged 18-59 are to edit documents (20 percent), draft emails (17 percent), summarize notes (14 percent), and create artwork (13 percent). Teens’ top uses of AI for school are to write reports (20 percent), edit documents (19 percent), summarize notes (19 percent), and for presentations (16 percent).
“It’s fascinating to see such close alignment between teens and adults in their use of AI, particularly for productivity tasks like writing and editing,” said Jennifer Hamilton, senior vice president of Education & Child Development at NORC. “This finding challenges the notion that AI is primarily a tool for younger generations, revealing that adults under age 60 are engaging with these technologies at similar rates. As both teens and their parents navigate the educational and professional landscape, AI seems to be a shared resource across generations.”
Adults are skeptical about the ways teens are using AI in school, especially for content generation.
At least a quarter of adults think teens should never use AI for school-related tasks, except for tutoring. Forty-three percent of adults believe that teenagers should never use AI to write a paper and 36 percent believe they should never use AI for homework purposes. Conversely, 62 percent of teens think AI will help make the way they learn or do schoolwork easier.
“Survey results suggest adults would rather teens not use AI for creating work—like doing homework or writing papers—but are more amenable to students using AI for learning,” said Hamilton. “This is good news as research is beginning to learn of the benefits AI can bring to supporting student learning, like having ever-present tailored tutoring support.”
For those who opt out of AI, privacy remains a big concern.
A large majority of teens and adults who do not use AI are worried about their privacy (68 percent and 77 percent, respectively).
Methodology
The two self-funded polls were conducted between August and September 2024. The adult sample was conducted between September 12 and September 16, during an AmeriSpeak monthly Omnibus survey. It included 1,111 interviews with a nationally representative sample (margin of error +/- 4.0 percentage points) from the AmeriSpeak Panel. The teen sample was conducted between August 24 and September 9, during a monthly AmeriSpeak Teen Omnibus survey. It included 1,037 interviews with teens ages 13-17 with a nationally representative sample (margin of error +/- 4.4 percentage points). Both panels are part of AmeriSpeak, NORC’s probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. household population. The teen survey included 452 interviews from AmeriSpeak’s teen panel and 585 interviews from a non-probability opt-in panel. A comprehensive listing of all study questions and tabulations of top-level results for each question is available below.
About the NORC Spotlight on Education
NORC at the University of Chicago’s Spotlight on Education series is a series of quick-hitting national surveys on issues vital to education and its place in society, conducted using AmeriSpeak®’s probability-based panels.
About NORC at the University of Chicago
NORC at the University of Chicago conducts research and analysis that decision-makers trust. As a nonpartisan research organization and a pioneer in measuring and understanding the world, we have studied almost every aspect of the human experience and every major news event for more than eight decades. Today, we partner with government, corporate, and nonprofit clients around the world to provide the objectivity and expertise necessary to inform the critical decisions facing society.
Contact: For more information, please contact Anna-Leigh Ong at NORC at ong-anna-leigh@norc.org or (917) 242-2172 (cell).
