From Efficiency to Meaning: Adolescents’ Envisioned Role of AI in Health Management

Paper Title

From Efficiency to Meaning: Adolescents’ Envisioned Role of AI in Health Management

Publication Info

• Topic area: Adolescents' perceptions of AI in health learning and management.
• Keywords: Adolescents, health AI, autonomy, family health management, trust, emotional support, design fiction, co-design, celiac disease, AI literacy.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Most prior research on health AI focuses on adult users, leaving adolescents' perceptions and needs underexplored despite their growing engagement with AI technologies.
• Significance: Adolescence is a critical developmental period where individuals develop lifelong health behaviors and autonomy. Understanding their views on health AI is essential to design effective and developmentally appropriate technologies.
• Motivation and related work: Existing studies highlight AI's potential in personal health management but also reveal concerns such as trust, misinformation, and emotional dependence. Adolescents, as digital natives, face unique challenges in health literacy and self-management, especially within family contexts. This paper addresses the gap by investigating adolescents' perceptions of health AI through workshops.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Design fiction and co-design workshops to explore adolescents’ envisioned roles of AI in health learning and management, focusing on the context of a family celiac disease diagnosis.
• Novelty:
  1. Provides a rich account of adolescents’ envisioned roles of AI in health management, emphasizing its potential to foster health learning and autonomy.
  2. Advances understanding of adolescents’ critical stance on health AI as a supportive tool that complements human-led activities.
  3. Offers nuanced insights into adolescents’ concerns about trust and emotional support, highlighting contextual factors shaping their perceptions.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted seven workshops with 23 adolescents aged 14–17 using design fiction and co-design methods.
  • Developed scenarios focused on a family celiac disease diagnosis, prompting participants to envision AI solutions for health management.
  • Activities included health information seeking, co-designing AI solutions for family health management, and storyboarding personal symptom investigation.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Adolescents envisioned AI roles in enhancing health understanding, reducing cognitive burden, mediating family collaborative health management, and providing guidance while respecting autonomy.
  • Trust in AI was nuanced, with participants trusting AI for low-stakes tasks but preferring human involvement for high-stakes decisions.
  • Divided views on AI providing direct emotional support, with some valuing its empathetic style and others rejecting it as inauthentic.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Provides unique insights into adolescents' perceptions, which are underrepresented in health AI research compared to adult users.
  • Highlights adolescents' preference for AI as a supplementary tool rather than a replacement for human interaction.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Workshops conducted via Zoom with activities on Miro, involving scenario-based design and reflective discussions.
  • Participants engaged with ChatGPT and designed AI solutions for family health management.
  • Data analyzed using thematic analysis, identifying key themes in adolescents’ expectations and concerns.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited generalizability due to regional recruitment and focus on older adolescents (aged 15–17).
  • Single-session workshops may restrict depth of engagement.
  • Did not collect data on participants’ AI literacy, which could influence their perceptions.
  • Future work should include parents and explore multi-day workshops, diverse adolescent populations, and broader health contexts.

Summary

This study investigates adolescents’ perceptions of health AI through workshops focused on a family celiac disease diagnosis. Findings reveal that adolescents envision AI as a tool to enhance health understanding, reduce cognitive burden, support family health management, and respect autonomy. Trust in AI was nuanced, with participants preferring human involvement for high-stakes decisions. Views on emotional support were divided, with some appreciating AI’s empathetic style and others rejecting it as inauthentic. The study highlights the importance of designing health AI systems that foster adolescent autonomy, promote AI literacy, and enable meaningful activities. Future research should address broader contexts and include family perspectives to further inform health AI design for adolescents.