Professor Christopher Roth from the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne and an international research team investigated how strongly the behavior of other teenagers influences their parents’ decisions. The study, “Social Dynamics of AI Adoption in Parents' Educational Decisions,” has been published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Around 2,000 parents from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom took part in the study. All had at least one child between the ages of 13 and 18. The parents were asked how much they would be willing to pay for a three-month premium subscription to an AI tool that their child could use for schoolwork.
The parents were presented with different scenarios regarding AI use among teenagers: 20, 40, 60, or 80 percent. The results showed that the more teenagers use AI for homework, the more willing their parents are to pay for it. For every ten-percentage-point increase in assumed AI use, average willingness to pay increased by US$1.83. Between the 20-percent and 80-percent usage scenarios, willingness to pay increased by more than 60 percent, or around US$11. For approximately 20 percent of parents, the decisive factor was that they did not want their child to fall behind other teenagers.
At the same time, the study shows that information about potential risks has little impact on parents’ willingness to pay. Some parents were additionally given information about potential long-term learning losses associated with AI. While this information changed their attitudes, support for school-wide rules or bans increased from 44 to 57 percent. However, their willingness to pay individually for an AI subscription remained virtually unchanged.
The study was conducted with the participation of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence, jointly supported by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne.