The mobility of wearable tech, smartphone enhancements, and social media/AI advancements has increased younger generations’ technological literacy. Each generation has been more exposed to technology than the last, inside and outside the house. According to a
study by Pew Research, 95% of children have access to a smartphone. Pair that with the fact that many high schools now have kids learning on laptops, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a time when teens aren’t interacting with some form of technology. Parents have to be more vigilant than ever when it comes to monitoring their teens’ usage of various devices.
A 2025
All About Cookies survey found that screen time reduction is an ongoing challenge for most families. The AAC team asked parents their opinions on when they feel their child should use certain things, like AI, and when they can own a phone, as well as manage a public social media account.
Parents’ Feelings About Their Teens Using Certain Tech
With the rise of AI chatbots, many people are turning to places like ChatGPT and Grok for assistance with a variety of things. These tools have their benefits, but usage at a young age could lead to over reliance on them. There have been numerous cases in recent months of students using AI to complete assignments, as well as many people utilizing AI chatbots to replace human interaction. Other serious cases include people turning to AI for mental health advice, which has led to
recent lawsuits from parents who have lost their teens due to using ChatGPT in place of a licensed mental health professional.
The same report found that one in four parents surveyed (22%) felt that their teen should never use an AI chatbot like Grok or ChatGPT. Even parents who were more forgiving of AI usage felt that their child should be at least 16 years old before interacting with LLMs, the highest median age among all categories, tied with having your own social media account.
Parents were most opposed to their teens using AI over things like having their own social media and smart devices, showing that right now, AI use has not been willingly accepted as a normal part of the digital world like social media by the past generation, as of yet.
The Most Dangerous Social Media Platforms According to Parents
While social media has been accepted as something that teens will use at some point, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be levels of concern among parents for their teens putting themselves out there on social media platforms.
Unanimously, the app that parents felt posed the highest risk to their teens was TikTok.
Thirty-eight percent of parents identified the video-based social media platform as the most dangerous. That is more than double the percentage of concern among all other social media platforms. Snapchat, a messaging app and media sharing platform, was the second biggest concern for parents, chosen by 14%. The nature of this concern could be due to the app’s disappearing message system as well as its emphasis on sharing pictures.
For months, it seemed as if TikTok was a privacy concern for many, with
various congressional hearings in America calling for it to be banned from U.S. app stores due to how the app collected users’ data. It seems that concern has died down in the current news cycle, but parents haven’t seemed to forget, as evidenced by the above data.
Another recent development surrounding TikTok is the
executive order signed by the president readying the app to be sold to a group of American investors. The long theorized TikTok deal could play a big part in the potential impacts on how parents view the app moving forward, but as of earlier this month, parents felt that TikTok posed more danger to their teens than any other app by a large margin.
Apps like Discord and Twitch, which are also synonymous with usage among younger generations, came in quite low on the parent-worry scale, with only 5% of parents feeling Discord was a danger and 2% having worries about Twitch.
Parents Weigh In On Whether Their Teen Is Addicted to Their Phone
TikTok is well known for its addictive algorithm that has been designed to keep people scrolling and engaged with its platform. This goal to keep users on their devices could be a reason why parents are worried about these apps. According to the
AACP , children are spending 7 ½ hours a day watching or using screens. This prompted the All About Cookies team to see how parents felt about the amount of time their teens were spending on their phones.
Research shows younger generations could use a digital detox, and parents are recognizing a pattern. An alarming 60% have been worried that their teen is addicted to their phone.
With most children averaging 8 hours in school and 7.5 hours on their phones, they’re essentially averaging all of their free time on their phones that could be spent doing activities or with friends and family. So it comes as no surprise that many parents feel their children may be addicted to their phones
How Parents Feel About Phone Bans
With many parents having fears that their teen could be addicted to their phone, it’s no surprise that many of them support the ongoing phone bans that are cropping up in high schools across America. Recently,
14 different states have active laws or executive orders that prohibit or limit phone usage in schools.
Research indicates two-thirds (68%) of parents support banning phones in high schools to some extent.
Children spend 9-10 months of the year in school, which means parents have next to no control over what they’re doing for the majority of the day, most of the year. The lack of insight and control over their child during this time may lead parents to support phone bans in an attempt to keep their teens from becoming distracted in school, as well as limit their time using these devices.
Potentially more shocking is that less than one-fourth (13%) of parents at least somewhat oppose these phone bans. Many parents choose to give their children a cell phone as a way to stay connected to them during times when they’re apart. 2025 figures reinforce that parents are becoming concerned that their teens’ phone use will hinder their learning. These findings could be pointing to a potential generational shift not only in current Gen-Z/Alpha teens’ phone usage, but in their millennial parents’ opinions on phone access as well.
Final Thoughts
The technological shifts of this current generation have parents feeling more concerned than optimistic about their children’s phone usage. Many different statistics from the survey conducted by All About Cookies show that a majority of parents are worried about how their teens are interacting with technology. This is important as many larger conversations are being had on the ways to regulate tech, such as chatbots, that some parents are worried about, alongside the aforementioned phone bans. This increased worry could lead to parents taking more precautions with their teens’ phone usage, such as increased screentime monitoring or using parental control apps. Technological advancements have strengthened communication and technological literacy, but these advancements are also things that parents and legislators need to be aware of when making decisions on how to navigate teens using tech.
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