singapore – More than half of 8-year-olds in Singapore have used it artificial intelligence (AI) tools; Usage increases rapidly between ages 10 and 13.
The most popular app among them is ChatGPT.
By age 10, more than 7 in 10 children have used an AI tool, and by age 13, more than 9 in 10 children have used an AI tool.
These findings come from new research by Dr. Xuejiao Chen, Senior Research Fellow at A*STAR’s Human Development Potential Research Institute, and Professor Jean Yong, Professor of Pediatrics, Yong Lu Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS).
This study investigated how children’s patterns of AI use are associated with family socio-economic status. The findings were presented at the Singapore Population Association’s annual conference held at NUS on May 21.
Professor Yeung told The Straits Times that the study gives Singapore the first national picture of how children are using AI, and provides insight into how early children are using it.
The study is based on nationally representative data from 2,985 children aged 8 to 13 from the Singapore Long-Term Early Development Study (SG-Leads).
The researchers said their findings come as AI tools are increasingly integrated into children’s daily lives, highlighting the need to pay close attention to how children interact with AI, rather than just whether they have access to technology.
The study found that nearly 16% of 8- to 9-year-olds were classified as “gaming a lot,” meaning they primarily use AI for gaming several times a week and less for other purposes.
A further 17% of this age group are classified as ‘heavy studying and gaming’, meaning they use AI one to several times a week for both schoolwork and gaming.
Activities for those using AI for learning primarily included translating languages, solving math and science problems, and learning new concepts.
Games for children that used AI in their games included AI Dungeon, a role-playing game where players use AI to create adventures for their characters, and a modified version of Minecraft that allows players to use generated AI. These AI fixes will allow players to create companions to play with and connect to in-game AI assistants to answer questions.
Just over 20 percent of users were low AI users, who used AI tools less than once a week or not at all for learning or personal interests.
4.4 percent were “multipurpose users” who used AI tools at least once a week across a variety of activities.
A similar pattern was seen among children aged 10 to 13, with 23.1% using AI for studying or playing games, and 5.3% using AI primarily for gaming.
Apart from ChatGPT, children aged 8 to 13 mainly used Meta AI and Google Gemini.
The study found that parents’ education levels influenced their children’s patterns of AI use.
Parents with a college degree or above were categorized as high-educated, parents with secondary education or higher were categorized as medium-educated, and parents with less than a secondary education were categorized as low-educated.
Among children aged 10 to 13, those whose parents had lower levels of education were more likely to use AI for general purposes such as leisure and gaming than for academic purposes.
This finding suggests that children from families with higher socio-economic status are not necessarily more likely to adopt AI tools or use them for academic purposes.
Professor Yeung said the next step is to investigate how these AI behaviors relate to children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced in May: Educational AI tools will be introduced in stages under the supervision of Singapore’s fourth graders.
While applauding the move, Dr Chen said the study showed that half of eight-year-olds, primarily second graders, were already using AI.
“At this stage, it remains important to improve AI literacy among primary school students, their parents, and educators, especially since AI is still relatively new,” she said.
“I think many parents don’t understand how AI works or how to protect their children when using AI. So public education and guidelines are still very helpful at this early stage,” she added.
Professor Yeung said there was enough evidence that by fourth grade, most children were already using AI, regardless of whether their schools were providing guidance.
“It’s good for schools to provide some guidance, but I think it’s also really important for parents to know how it works and how schools can work with parents to protect the internet.”
