The encounter between adolescents and Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents one of the most profound sociological shifts of recent decades. We're not just talking about a tool, but a new agent of socialization that integrates with peers, families, and schools.
Although Artificial Intelligence is a recent phenomenon, the sociological foundations for analyzing it rest on several authors who have studied its relationship with other environmental factors. This analysis forces us to look beyond, where AI is no longer just a tool, but a social facilitator with which young people coexist. Consider the term "onlife ," coined by philosopher Luciano Floridi, which describes today's hyperconnected existence where the distinction between the real (offline) world and the virtual (online) world has faded, merging into a hybrid reality, an environment in which we are constantly immersed between everyday life and technology.
For the new generations, born in a period of rapid and radical change, these innovations represent an unprecedented symbiosis, a context in which to extend their identity.
AI: What are the risks for adolescents?
Traditionally, adolescence is a time of tension, doubt, and the quest to build the Self. AI introduces cognitive delegation because it tends to solve complex problems: this can undermine the resistance of reality, the effort made by the individual. The consequence is a maturation process that risks stagnating and failing to evolve.
Another risk, highlighted by American sociologist and technologist Sherry Turkle, is how AI offers the illusion of unpretentious companionship. For a teenager, interacting with these systems can seem reassuring, as there's no offense or judgment involved. A dull relationship leads to atrophy, where the child fails to learn to manage conflict and the unpredictability typical of social relationships, living in increasingly inadequate physical and emotional isolation.
Gaps
Furthermore, AI is creating a digital divide that no longer concerns the ownership or non-ownership of certain devices, but rather the quality of interaction between passive consumers —that is, teenagers who use systems merely for entertainment or to avoid more complex cognitive tasks—and consumer producers —that is, teenagers who use AI to enhance and expand their creativity and technical expertise. Many sociological studies have predicted that this distinction will be the main factor in social and employment inequality over the next twenty years.
The general danger emerging is that the various forms of AI are becoming a device that replaces autonomy and critical thinking. A form of assisted passivity (a much-discussed concept in media sociology) that leads an individual to delegate their decisions to a machine, following an invisible path laid out by others and enhanced by technology.
Codeluppi's thoughts
We live in an era of advanced, complex, and lightning-fast societies, filled with screens, social media, and an increasingly dematerialized reality. A hyperactive society, where new technologies are radically transforming the way we live, work, and communicate, impacting a structure made up of more vulnerable individuals, especially the younger generations.
Vanni Codeluppi, professor of media sociology at IULM University in Milan, analyzes these phenomena by placing them within a broader framework through two concepts: social window dressing and biocapitalism , where AI and algorithms are not just devices, but rather engines that accelerate social processes already underway for decades. Social window dressing describes the progressive spectacularization of society, a way of putting oneself on display by displaying life, body, and feelings as commodities to gain visibility and validation in the age of digital media and social networks.
Bio-capitalism
For the sociologist, we are moving from an autonomous individual to one defined by their own data . If today's teenager lives onlife, AI becomes a means to refine the image through filters that make reality more attractive, less imperfect, boring, and dull. A shop window that must shine continuously and relentlessly: thus, kids end up desiring and thinking according to statistical averages of what the algorithm has processed, ultimately conforming.
The concept of biocapitalism represents the most advanced evolution of the capitalist economic model, a system that not only exploits physical and material labor, but also influences the biological, mental, relational, and emotional components of individuals through highly powerful communication mechanisms supported by AI. The simplification offered by AI keeps users in a state of low critical resistance, making them perfect consumers, always ready to receive input.
For Codeluppi, AI in the hands of adolescents risks becoming a prosthesis : instead of expanding human capabilities, it restricts them within predefined consumer paths. Decision-making autonomy is replaced by an illusion of freedom, where the child chooses from options the algorithm has already selected for them.
The sociological challenge: reconnecting adolescents
Faced with this scenario, all educational communities, families and schools first and foremost, should act as critical mediators not only in the use of media, but in helping children deconstruct them.
Below are some structured action strategies that sociology suggests to rekindle thinking:
- from the response to the process, since AI provides instant answers, reference adults should above all evaluate the path, supporting adolescents to ask themselves questions about the path taken, possible errors and solutions to increase divergent thinking;
- re-evaluate slowness, The places where children live must once again become reassuring spaces, free from devices, to foster genuine encounters with others and cognitive development, counteracting the potential risks of atrophy from overstimulation. A here and now where real learning occurs;
- dismantle the display case, the use of AI isn't free, and data is a commodity. By helping adolescents see the underlying logic of algorithms, we shift their focus from passive use to more conscious and responsible use, reclaiming their true uniqueness against potential standardization;
- recover the physical and social dimension, through projects that require negotiation, conflict, and physical agreement between peers. AI cannot simulate the complexity of a human debate. vis-à-vi. Let's go back to valorizing orality, The tone of voice, the facial expressions, we return to offering real places where we can afford to make mistakes and be out of fashion. Only in this way can teenagers step out of the window and rediscover themselves.
References
- Badino M., D'Asaro FA, Pedrazzoli F., Educating about AI. The Educational Challenge of Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT and Gemini, Turin, Sanoma, 2024
- Codeluppi V., Megamodernity: Understanding Society, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2026
- Codeluppi V., Digital world, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2022
- D'Ambrosio AArtificial Intelligence in Schools: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Students Ages 8 to 14, Books for STEM, 2025
- Floridi L., The Onlife Manifesto: Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era, Berlin, Springer Verlag, 2014
- Lavanga F., Mancariello MR, Adolescent Education in Extended Reality: The Pedagogy of Adolescence in the Age of Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and the Metaverse, libreriauniversitaria.it, 2022
- Oliverio Ferraris A., The construction of identity, Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 2022
- Turkle S., Together but alone. Why we expect more and more from technology and less and less from others, Turin, Einaudi, 2019
