Op-Ed: There's a Teen Rebellion Afoot Over AI

Teen rebellion these days isn't about sneaking in more screen time: It's about demanding less of it, and on one's own terms. In a New York Times opinion piece, Jessica Grose spotlights teens who are pushing back against school tech policies, surveillance software, and even their teachers' use of AI. One California student, 17-year-old Avery Schromm, helped organize classmates against a sudden new Chromebook rule that came with blanket tracking and no promise of privacy; roughly 90% of respondents to her survey said being forced onto a "not private" device made them uneasy. "A majority of the students who took the survey ... worried about being monitored outside of instructional time and about how their data might be stored," Grose notes.

Grose notes that many teens say they're fine with some tech limits—many support phone restrictions at school, for example—but she adds they remain especially motivated by concerns over data, privacy, and authenticity. At one private school, students outraged that teachers can use AI while students can't surveyed peers and found near-universal opposition to AI-generated feedback from faculty. "It felt like a kind of betrayal," one of those students tells Grose of finding out how their "person-to-person communication" with their instructors had become "person-to-robot." Others describe feeling alone in their "Luddite" leanings to Grose, yet they're still willing to get involved, including speaking up at district meetings about tech use. Grose's full column here.