Chapter 5: The Paradox of Learning in a GenAI World

As the world begins to embrace the opportunities of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the history of social media offers a cautionary tale for us to consider. When Facebook launched in 2004, its developers claimed it would connect the world. The Facebook mission statement reads, “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” (Facebook, n.d.). YouTube was released in 2005, followed by Instagram in 2010, Snapchat in 2011, and TikTok in 2016. The number of ways for people to connect using social media applications has exploded over the past two decades. These tools provide ubiquitous access to information, learning opportunities, wider communication with like-minded communities, and means for self-expression and creativity. For today’s children and young adults, social media has been a constant in their lives from birth. In fact, US teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media platforms (Rothwell, 2023). This is even higher for girls who average 5.3 hours per day engaging with social media, sharing messages, creating content, and connecting with their friends and a much wider audience of individuals they may have never met in person. In a study for the Pew Research Center, Faverio and Sidoti (2024) found that nearly half of all teenagers report they are online “almost constantly,” and less than 10% rarely go online. With so much time spent online engaging with others, it would be fair to think this would be the happiest, most socially connected group of children the world has ever seen.