Understanding Adolescents' Perceptions of Benefits and Risks in Health AI Technologies through Design Fiction

2025-04-18

AI Summary

This study investigates adolescents’ (aged 13–17) perceptions of benefits, risks, trust, and privacy regarding AI in clinical and personal health contexts. Employing design fiction, we constructed four speculative future health-AI scenarios, then conducted semi-structured interviews with thematic coding analysis to systematically uncover adolescents’ distinct trust logics toward health AI—marking the first empirical exploration of its kind. Key findings reveal that parent–adolescent confidentiality tensions significantly erode perceived privacy security; health condition severity and prior AI experience positively moderate trust; and while adolescents regard health AI as a valuable learning resource, they express concern that it may exacerbate conflicts between parental oversight and adolescent autonomy. The study addresses a critical gap in empirical research on adolescent digital health ethics and proposes three adolescent-centered design principles: “transparency and controllability,” “tiered confidentiality,” and “participatory co-design.”

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Privacy & Security
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Semantics and Knowledge: Provenance, trust, security and privacy, and ethical issues in managing semantic data

Abstract

Despite the growing research on users' perceptions of health AI, adolescents' perspectives remain underexplored. This study explores adolescents' perceived benefits and risks of health AI technologies in clinical and personal health settings. Employing Design Fiction, we conducted interviews with 16 adolescents (aged 13-17) using four fictional design scenarios that represent current and future health AI technologies as probes. Our findings reveal that with a positive yet cautious attitude, adolescents envision unique benefits and risks specific to their age group. While health AI technologies were seen as valuable learning resources, they also raised concerns about confidentiality with their parents. Additionally, we identified several factors, such as severity of health conditions and previous experience with AI, influencing their perceptions of trust and privacy in health AI. We explore how these insights can inform the future of design of health AI technologies to support learning, engagement, and trust as adolescents navigate their healthcare journey.

Problem

• Explores adolescents' views on health AI benefits and risks
• Investigates trust and privacy concerns in health AI for teens
• Identifies factors influencing adolescent perceptions of health AI

Innovation

• Used Design Fiction for adolescent interviews
• Explored benefits and risks of health AI
• Identified trust and privacy influencing factors