Reader's Corner

Growing Up With Algorithms That Know You

By Kiya Kamdar
28 June 2026

There’s something strange about growing up alongside a chatbot or artificial intelligence.

Not in a robots-taking-over-the-world way—but in ordinary, everyday moments. Just think about how normal it feels when artificial intelligence plays a song based on our preferences and mood, without us telling it what to play. The way our feeds seem to understand our mood before we do. The way a chatbot sometimes feels easier to talk to than a real person on a bad day.

For teens today, AI isn’t the future anymore. It’s already part of daily life.

It now sits in our routines—helping us study, editing photos, recommending skincare products, and finishing sentences. It’s there for our late-night questions that we’re too embarrassed to ask anyone else. We turn to it when we’re bored, sad, or simply want to feel understood.

And that’s where things become complicated.

Because being a teenager has always been about figuring ourselves out: who we are, our identity, our confidence, our voice, and our fears.

But now, there’s something else involved in that journey. Something that learns from you but also shapes you.

AI reflects you back to yourself, but not always honestly or accurately. It shows you what you engage with and what you might like or dislike. Over time, it can start to feel like a carbon copy of you. In reality, however, it reflects only a filtered version of who you are, shaped by algorithms.

For teens already dealing with pressure about how to look, how to act, and how to be "enough," this matters.

Over time, I didn’t even realise when it started affecting me—a reel, a story, a text from a girl shaming me for something I had never even noticed before. Slowly, AI became the friend I turned to for the smallest problems, even for fixing my photos. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that these years are supposed to be about figuring ourselves out, making mistakes, and learning how to work through them. And I know I’m not the only one—this is something many teenagers experience.

AI can amplify our insecurities just as easily as it can support us. One search about skincare turns into a feed full of "perfect" skin. One fitness video becomes a spiral of unrealistic body standards. One curiosity becomes a constant loop until the next search.

But it’s not all bad. At the same time, AI can also become a safe space.

It can help you write when you’re out of words. It can explain almost anything without making you feel foolish. It can listen—endlessly and patiently—in a way that people sometimes can’t.

And maybe that’s why AI has become such a significant part of modern teenhood. In a world where even the smallest thing we search for, ask, or say can feel judged, AI fills many of the gaps.

The gaps between who you are and who you’re trying to become.

Between what you feel and what you can say out loud.

Between loneliness and connection.

But it can’t replace real growth or real people.

Teenhood isn’t meant to be perfectly curated. It’s supposed to be awkward, messy, emotional, and confusing. It’s about learning things the hard way and finding your own path. It’s real conversations, real mistakes, and real relationships.

AI can guide you, support you, and even comfort you during those 2 a.m. moments—but it shouldn’t define who you are or who you are going to become.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t know you the way the people around you do. Not really.

So, as you grow up with AI, remember this: your story is yours to write—messy, imperfect, and entirely your own. Algorithms can suggest, support, and reflect, but they can never truly define you. That part will always belong to you.