Currently accepted at: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 20, 2026
Date Accepted: Jun 24, 2026
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jun 25, 2026
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/95819
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
An "ahead-of-print" version has been submitted to Pubmed, see PMID: 42347701
How US Youth Use AI Chatbots: Conversation Patterns from Naturalistic Keystroke Observations
ABSTRACT
Background:
Youth are increasingly engaging with generative artificial intelligence (genAI) chatbots, yet little is known about the nature of their interactions.
Objective:
This study used naturalistic behavioral observations of keystrokes typed into genAI mobile apps to characterize the topics youth discuss with chatbots.
Methods:
Participants were 3,363 U.S. youth ages ≤9–17 years using the Aura parental monitoring app who engaged in some degree of genAI use. Text input was coded using a large language model with human review.
Results:
Most youth used genAI as a functional tool for problem-solving and information seeking. However, a substantial minority engaged in conversations involving violence, romantic and sexual role-play, and friendship. Younger users showed higher rates of potentially inappropriate content than older teens. Although general-purpose applications (e.g., ChatGPT) were mostly used for task assistance, they were also popular for socioemotional purposes.
Conclusions:
More research is needed examining psychosocial impacts of AI interactions and safety-focused design features.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.