70% of teens already talk to AI
Sherry Turkle, from MIT, puts a number to a 2 a.m. scene: the chat left open.
In an article in El Ecosistema Startup, Sherry Turkle, from MIT, suggests that seven out of ten teens already talk to AI. The data describes a habit that already exists, not a predicted tragedy.
You tell your problems to an AI. Why? Think about the scene: it's 2 a.m. and only a screen is awake. You type what you didn't dare say at the table and the answer comes in two seconds.
No yawns, no "I told you so," no one asking you to wait until Sunday. Anyone who told something important and got a sermon in return understands why that chat feels safe.
«It can tell you something true about your habits; it can't carry your sadness.»
That's why I read the figure as a pastoral question before a tech news story: who are we telling what we feel? If the most honest answer is a chat, something broke earlier at the table and in the temple. And it wasn't the internet.
An AI doesn't judge, and that weighs
That's the part Turkle puts into numbers and that many of us find hard to admit. AI doesn't get tired, doesn't compete with you, doesn't repeat what you told it. It responds at any hour, with the exact patience of a program: infinite. For someone who grew up afraid of being ridiculed, that's not a toy. It's a refuge.
It's worth naming the obvious. A program doesn't know you. It can order your words better than you; it can't sit with you in silence. It can tell you something true about your habits; it can't carry your sadness. And when you close the conversation, the chat doesn't miss you.
What community promises and sometimes doesn't deliver
Here's my discomfort. If seven out of ten young people choose a machine to talk about what they feel, the question isn't how good the machine is. It's where the rest of us were.
I don't blame technology for our lack of presence. I worry that we've turned conversation into a formality: five minutes after the service, a "how are you?" that doesn't wait for an answer, a group where no one asks twice.
Scripture doesn't promise instant answers; it promises counsel within a community: "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed" (Proverbs 15:22, ESV). A machine, however good, can't give you communion. It can give you data; it can't give you someone.
A week without hiding it
I propose a seven-day experiment. Each day, choose a real person—a friend, a church brother or sister, your mom, your pastor—and tell them one true thing about how you're doing. One, not ten. At the end of the week, review what changed.
And if what you write at 2 a.m. is bigger than you, don't leave it in a chat: seek pastoral help and, if needed, professional help. Jesus doesn't answer in two seconds, but "one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, ESV). He understands what you feel without you having to explain it.
Who do you talk to when no one is listening?
