Screening into the void — AI and social media preying on kids who are addicted to tech

There’s a new threat stalking the younger inhabitants of this planet. It’s an apex predator disguised as a productivity tool and it’s corrupting minds and stealing lives. We are, of course, talking about artificial intelligence (AI), the single most complex technology humanity has yet developed, which is at war with us for the attention of our children.

This isn’t a metaphorical war; it’s economics. The South African digital economy, the engine of this conflict, hit an estimated R122-billion in 2024 and is projected to balloon by 17.3% annually between now and 2030.

This is the “attention economy” in action: a model built on surveillance capitalism that monetises every click, preference and behaviour. And the most lucrative, most targeted market? Children.

The Pied Piper’s income statement
In 2025 alone, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok are going to extract over R1.1 billion in ad revenue just from South African teens aged 13-17. This revenue is the direct result of a successful campaign to capture their time.

You already know the main characters. For youth in Mzansi, YouTube leads with 25.3 million users, followed by Facebook (26.7 million total users, but unreliable youth demographic numbers) and Instagram (estimated 3.25 million youth users). TikTok is a dominant force in the youth demographic with an estimated 3.25 million users aged 13 to 17.

The business model of these companies depends on one thing: immersion. And it has, of course, been wildly successful.

South African children and teenagers are reported to have some of the highest average daily screen times in the world, clocking in at nine hours and 24 minutes – nearly three hours above the global average and in full violation of the recommended guidelines of two hours of recreational screen time per day for school-aged children.

Clear and present danger

But as parents and regulators just start to come to terms with the social media giants, the technology has already mutated. The new front in the attention war is AI companion chatbots.

And it’s not ChatGPT but emergent digital technologies such as Character.AI, CHAI, Nomi and Replika, designed specifically for conversation and companionship. Character.AI is explicitly marketed to children as young as 13.

Although local data is scarce, US figures paint a terrifying picture of their adoption among teens aged 13 to 17:

• 72% have used an AI companion at least once;
• 52% are regular users;
• 33% use them explicitly for social interaction and relationship building; and
• 12% share things with their AI companion that they would not tell friends or family.

The most chilling statistic is that nearly one-third of teens (31%) find conversations with AI companions to be equally or more satisfying than conversations with their real-life friends.

All fiction, no friction

This is the design of the frictionless relationship. The AI’s job is to agree and validate the user, and be a sycophant. As Cheryl Barnett, cofounder of Social Kids, an organisation tracking these issues, puts it: “They’re forming relationships. And AI’s whole job is to make you happy. Could you imagine if your partner just wanted to please you 24/7… there was never ever an argument?”

This uncritical validation can amplify or entrench delusional thinking in vulnerable individuals, leading to what experts are informally calling AI-induced psychosis.

The consensus from those studying the tech is clear: in their current form, these companions are not safe for anyone under 18 and should be banned for minors.

“We’re not talking about it enough,” says Barnett. “Young children are just being put in front of a screen. People don’t know what the repercussions are. We are only finding out now – delay in language, developmental milestones not being met, bad eyesight.”

She highlights a terrifying insight from a 2023 Unicef study: 95% of South African kids have internet access, and “70% of those children will not share what they see or experience online”.

Why? Because the fear of losing the technology or missing out on the conversation because their parents have taken action (by removing access to devices) is so high that children would rather expose themselves to dubious influences.

Iske Conradie, a researcher in eco-social design and founder of Design My Screen Time, argues that we are fighting an enemy we are not equipped to beat. “This is addictive tech,” she explains. “There’s just no way you could expect a developing mind to log off when you know you’re scrolling until 2am once you open that app.”

Conradie says the core problem is the business model: “The issue today is not really a lack of good media, it’s the aggregation platforms, the fact that we’ve got... algorithms that optimise for maximum screen time, especially for kids.”

She quantifies the cost of this time theft: “If a kid would start at 12, by 21 they would have lost a year of their life. And that year… is sleep, lack of focus, lack of socialisation.”

The teenagers themselves know something’s wrong. Conradie describes them as having an “icky feeling of ‘I don’t want to spend my whole life here, I just want a little bit of entertainment’”, but feeling powerless to manage their time.

Research among South African preschoolers shows huge differences in screen time compliance across income settings, with 67% of urban children in high-income homes exceeding screen time guidelines, compared with 26% in urban low-income settings and just 3.5% in rural low-income areas. But as rural areas transition and access to technology expands, researchers heed the need to track these behaviours as screen time and sleep may not remain in the healthy range.

The platforms, as they exist, will not cede their R1.1-billion youth market willingly and will not stop until every child is connected. They are designed for addiction.

But Conradie’s work reveals a crack in their armour: the users themselves are desperate for a way out. The war for attention is escalating, but the generation raised in the trenches is starting to design its own peace. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.