Understanding Adolescents' Perceptions of Benefits and Risks in Health AI Technologies through Design Fiction
Jamie Lee, Kyuha Jung, Erin Gregg Newman, Emilie Chow, Yunan Chen
TL;DR
This study investigates how adolescents perceive benefits and risks of health AI in clinical and personal health contexts using Design Fiction with 16 participants aged 13–17. It reveals a cautious optimism: adolescents see AI as a learning tool and a means to support health management but express robust concerns about privacy, data access (including parental visibility), and the potential for misdiagnosis or overreliance. The findings highlight the importance of human involvement in AI-enabled health workflows (human-in-the-loop), the need for adolescent-specific design considerations, and nuanced privacy strategies that respect data sensitivity and context. The work contributes design guidance for youth-centered health AI that emphasizes learning, engagement, trust, and safe data practices, with implications for clinicians, designers, and policymakers aiming to deploy adolescent-friendly health AI solutions.
Abstract
Despite the growing research on users' perceptions of health AI, adolescents' perspectives remain underexplored. This study explores adolescents' perceived benefits and risks of health AI technologies in clinical and personal health settings. Employing Design Fiction, we conducted interviews with 16 adolescents (aged 13-17) using four fictional design scenarios that represent current and future health AI technologies as probes. Our findings reveal that with a positive yet cautious attitude, adolescents envision unique benefits and risks specific to their age group. While health AI technologies were seen as valuable learning resources, they also raised concerns about confidentiality with their parents. Additionally, we identified several factors, such as severity of health conditions and previous experience with AI, influencing their perceptions of trust and privacy in health AI. We explore how these insights can inform the future of design of health AI technologies to support learning, engagement, and trust as adolescents navigate their healthcare journey.