ChatGPT is a homework helper for more than a quarter of teenagers – and the trend is accelerating

ChatGPT use in school work doubled in one year to 26% among American teenagers
A majority of teenagers think it’s fine to use ChatGPT for research
Far fewer support using ChatGPT to write essays or solve math problems

I’m old enough to remember when teachers said we couldn’t use a calculator on tests because we wouldn’t always have one in our pocket and they’d check essays that seemed familiar against their features on the Encarta CD – the rom encyclopedia. Teachers today are faced with the far more sophisticated tools offered by ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, whose popularity has skyrocketed among students, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The proportion of teenagers using ChatGPT for school work doubled from 13% in 2023 to 26% a year later.

Let’s face it: schoolwork isn’t always the most exciting part of a teenager’s life. It’s no shocker that many teenagers are turning to artificial intelligence for some academic help. But the details of how ChatGPT is used by students are a bit more nuanced. Pew’s research found that a slim majority of 54% of teens are okay with using AI chatbots for tasks like researching new topics, which is hard to argue is an attempt to cheat. This approval drops to 29% for using ChatGPT to solve math problems, and only 18% of teens think it’s acceptable to have ChatGPT write essays for them.

ChatGPT’s prominence means that it is probably the most widely used of the many options. Even if all the respondents were scrupulously honest about whether they used ChatGPT for school work, that doesn’t mean they haven’t dabbled with Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, or any of a million apps that act as a wrapper for ChatGPT’s model. The Digital Education Council released a study in August that pegged students’ global use of some form of artificial intelligence at a much higher 86%.

Academic AI

Students who don’t just submit ChatGPT-written essays can actually enhance their education in creative ways. With the right approach, AI can be a good educational supplement, but never a replacement. Even the best ChatGPT prompt won’t replicate the experience of wrestling with an idea until you finally get it. There are already some experiments along those lines, with Arizona State University (ASU) working with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT and London’s David Game College running an AI-taught class as part of its new Sabrewing program.

There is cause for concern that students become overly dependent on artificial intelligence and do not learn to think critically and solve problems independently. On the other hand, artificial intelligence in education can, if harnessed correctly, offer students access to personal resources they would otherwise not have. It’s the hardest, but probably best, resort, as even the strictest policies are unlikely to prevent students from using AI in every context they can. You need a school that replaces all homework with oral presentations and requires all research to be done using paper books to prevent that.

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