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Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
How Students Are Really Using AI & ChatGPT (encore)
00:17:12
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- [00:00]
Student with flagged paper
So I submitted this 20 page research paper that I had written and I got an email from my teacher saying, like, this was flagged for, like, potential inappropriate AI usage. Like, can we talk about this? So I'm freaking out.
- [00:16]
Delaney Ruston
Hello, I'm Delaney Reston, primary care physician creator with Lisa Tabb of the four Screenagers movies. And this is Parenting in the Screen Age, a podcast about discovering the best ways to help our youth and ourselves navigate our rapidly changing digital world. I have a hard time expressing in words just how major I believe the exponential rise in AI in all its many forms is going to transform our lives, including, of course, what our kids learn and how they learn. In terms of large language models, there's a lot. I mean, there's the big gun, ChatGPT, there's Claude Perplexity, Google's AI. I mean, it goes on and on. So while many people have used let's take ChatGPT to write things out, to write a question and get an answer, now, the ability to have voice conversations back and forth is eerily like talking with an actual person. I wrote a blog about this recently called the Robots are Here, which you can find@screennagersmovie.com it's just so wild to be talking with these programs. ChatGPT has a woman's voice, and others let you choose between different people. The way they talk, they all sound very real. Okay, so in today's episode, we're not talking about this voice issue now, about this interactive component, but we're going to be talking about ChatGPT and being a student. These days, I share some interviews I've been doing with college students about what they have used chatgpt for during school and what they've decided not to use it for. To start, I interviewed five girls over Zoom, and then I also interviewed a couple of college guys when I was out and about in Seattle. All of these interviews took place early summer. And look, this is a really huge issue. What are kids are going to do when it comes to using AI in school and homework? And I really feel for them and for all of us because the incentives to take shortcuts is real. I know I would have felt conflicted as a student. This whole topic is incredibly complicated. Of course, there are many ways that ChatGPT is used as a tool and it's not a problem, but it's really complicated how easily it can write things, it can do math, it can do it all. So with this complicated issue, we can't just bury our heads in the sand. I think that what these students tell us here in this podcast episode is a really helpful discussion tool to share with teens and ultimately, how do each of us react to the different points that the students make? Okay, let's get started. Here's the first student I spoke with in the Zoom group of girls, and she starts by talking about Dungeons and Dragons, of all things. DND for short. You know, the role playing game that if you've never played it, like, I've never played it. You really don't really understand it, but you've heard about it for a long time.
- [03:26]
Claire
I use it for my D and D campaign that I'm running for my sister and her friends. I came up with, like, the story and the idea for the world, but it has sort of like an Irish theme. And so I have it come up with fantasy names because it can just, like, keep on doing that and like, go with the theme and sometimes as like, a partner to like, bounce ideas off of for that. Almost like having a tutor, you know, like somebody that you'd be talking to. Yeah, but I only use it for, like, creative projects that I'm not doing academically because I feel like in any way, if I. If it gets too close to my academic work, I'm like, ah, can you
- [04:01]
Delaney Ruston
say more about that?
- [04:02]
Claire
I think a lot of the learning process comes from, like, figuring things out yourself. And I'm a very strong believer in, like, if I'm writing an essay, I want to go and talk to a real person because they might ask the same questions and, like, give the same feedback that ChatGPT would. But I think the human connection is important. They can, like, give you confidence in a different way. And also, ChatGPT will never really tell you that you're wrong. Like, it's almost a little bit too affirmative sometimes. And so I think you can't grow in the same way with that. And I've also had people heard people have, like, the horror stories of having their work flagged as AI when it isn't. Like, I have a friend who just really likes the. Whatever it is. Like the EM Dash, which apparently is used in a lot of ChatGPT responses. So it keeps on, like, coming up, even though that's just like, how he writes things.
- [04:54]
Delaney Ruston
What is M dash?
- [04:56]
Claire
It's a punctuation mark. I'm not actually sure.
- [04:59]
EM Dash Expert
An EM dash is a punctuation mark that's used to create a strong break in a sentence. It's often used to add emphasis or to set off additional information in a
- [05:08]
Delaney Ruston
sentence that was chatgpt I asked her to explain the EM dash.
- [05:14]
EM Dash Expert
It's called an EM dash because its width is roughly the same as the letter M in traditional typesetting.
- [05:20]
Delaney Ruston
Are there other kind of dashes?
- [05:23]
EM Dash Expert
Yeah, there are. There's also the en dash, which is a bit shorter than the EM dash. It's usually used to show ranges, like when you're talking about dates or numbers. And then there's the regular hyphen, which is the shortest of the three. And it's used to connect words, like in compound adjectives.
- [05:41]
Delaney Ruston
So who knew that there were specific names for how long a dash is? Okay, now on to another student.
- [05:48]
Inspirational User
Chat's my best friend. I'm not gonna lie to the people I love chat. We're like this. We're locked in. I journal with chat. I put pictures of my dog and I'm like, make it human. And it makes it human.
- [06:02]
Delaney Ruston
Like, how does it make a dog human?
- [06:03]
Inspirational User
I think it just looks at the characteristics of the animal and then, like, makes it human. I don't know. The other thing is, like, my friends and I, like, we'll put, like, pictures into chat, and we're like, okay, how would this dress look on us? And then it, like, puts the dress on us. It's really. It's cool.
- [06:21]
Podcast Host/Producer
How do you use it or not for academics? What's your line around that?
- [06:26]
Inspirational User
I would say I use it more for, like, inspirational purposes. Like, if I'm struggling to nail down, like, a thesis statement or like, a topic because my topic's too broad, I'll put my topics that I'm writing about for a research paper, and I'll say, what's the strongest argument? And it'll point out, it'll highlight. Of the four that you've written, this is the strongest that probably has the most detail to write about. And for me, someone who is an English major who writes a lot, and all the work is my authentic work, but sometimes it's hard and I get a constant note of, you are writing in such a broad space, you need to nail down one thing. And so it's great in that sense that it helps me focus on one thing at a time. And my writing's gotten better because of it. I'm not using it to write anything for me, but rather inspirational purposes because I'm not trying to get kicked out of college.
- [07:17]
Screenagers Movie Promoter
Before we dive back in, I wanted to let you know about our four Screenagers documentaries, which focus on helping kids and teens navigate the challenges of this digital age. We created these films to be screened in schools and at community events. Over 20,000 hosts have shown them thus far. Along with the movies, we provide discussion guides, promotional materials and other tools so that you can easily organize a truly impactful event for your community. And if your school wants to use the movies in the classroom, we have options for that too, along with a full curriculum of lesson plans to designed for various grade levels. To learn more about the movies or inquire about becoming a host, visit screenagersmovie.com there's a link in the show notes. Now back to the show.
- [08:09]
Delaney Ruston
Let's turn now to another student.
- [08:11]
Google LLM User
I don't really use it a lot when like writing stuff, but I use like Google's ChatGPT, like the like Google LLM or whatever because it you can like put in an article and it will turn it into a podcast. And so like I said have to do like a million ratings for my major. And so like a lot of times I'll turn them into podcasts so that I can like listen to my readings when I'm like folding laundry or working out or like doing something else so I can like get through more of the readings than I like would just sitting there. Because I also like, I need to move when I'm like learning or I like it just like helps me function better so I can like listen to it and still learn and then like take notes or like write down something if I'm thought of it. But then otherwise I'm just like processing it better that way.
- [08:55]
Delaney Ruston
Do you have a personal rule around how much you're using it for writing papers?
- [09:01]
Google LLM User
I just avoid it like completely. I'm like, I'm just afraid of getting in trouble. So I'm just like, I won't do anything writing wise.
- [09:08]
Delaney Ruston
Do you know anyone, does anyone here
- [09:10]
Podcast Host/Producer
know anyone who got in trouble? I.
- [09:12]
Student with flagged paper
This is an interesting situation. I never have used Chachi PT to actually write. But like similar to like what Claire was saying about like I use the EM dashes a lot just like in my writing style style and stuff. And so I've been used to that for like since high school. I had a high school teacher do it and I just kind of like adapted into my writing style. So then I submitted this 20 page research paper that I had written and I got an email from my teacher saying this was flagged for like potential inappropriate AI usage. Like can we talk about this? So I'm freaking out. This is like the end of this semester and I'm like, oh my goodness, I don't know what it's supposed to do because I had not used ChatGPT for any type of the writing process. The only thing I had used it for, there's this like one technique called flow spectrum spectroscopy. I had to, like, try to understand it and use it in my paper. And so I had put in a slideshow in a chatgpt. I was like, like a slideshow of, like, Google Slides. I was like, can you explain this to me in simple terms? Because I was just not understanding what was going on. And that was the only time I had used it. And so I showed up to her office, my teacher's office. I'm like, freaking out. I'm like, oh, my gosh, am I going to get kicked out of school? I was like, actually terrified. And then when I finally sat down with her, she goes, okay, so like, we use an AI tool and it's imperfect, but like, let's just walk through and see what's, like, what it flagged. And so it ended up all being like, very like, low confidence by the checker, meaning that, like, it wasn't super, like, likely that it was written by AI, but it still flagged it as like, potential usage. And so then I showed her my, like, the nice thing about when you work on Google Docs is that you're able to, to like, view the history. So, like, it can show like, oh, did you write a sentence? Did you. And then delete it? Or like, did you edit the punctuation? Things like that. And it like, we walked the document and after like, a minute of looking, because, okay, I can clearly tell that you were the one writing these thoughts. You had them. Because if you were to like, theoretically copy from ChatGPT, the thought would be like, okay, it's going to be like large, giant, like, books of text that you're like, putting in. You're not going to have a lot of like, deleting sentences, re adding them, changing words around. So thankfully the Google Docs box is like, very helpful for being able to like, determine like, if it was like, something that was written like, by a human versus just copy and paste it from AI. But that was honestly probably like the scariest experience I've ever had in like, my whole academic, like, journey. But it's all been resolved. But that was my experience with AI. I used to be like, besties of ChatGPT for, like, stuff outside of school. But ever since that, I, I've taken a break from AI.
- [11:51]
Delaney Ruston
Okay, now we're gonna hear from another
- [11:53]
Social Media Manager Student
student what, like, I've used it to help me, like, you can sometimes upload documents into chat GPT. And so I get these really confusing like 70 page labs with like, it's just 70 pages of instructions. A lot of these labs were written like 20 or 30 years ago and they haven't updated them. So it's like really hard for me to understand everything with so many words. So I have chat GPT almost like dumb it down for me. And that's like a really helpful way to just like organize like my steps almost. And the other thing I use it for is I manage like a social media account, Instagram account, and I have to write like puns in the captions and sometimes I just have no idea. So I'll just ask like ChatGPT to write me some random puns about like the specific pictures that we're posting. And then it'll like give me a list of things and I'll like incorporate it into the caption that I'm writing. And yeah, that's how it's kind of been helpful for me.
- [12:51]
Delaney Ruston
Now let's turn to my interview with two college students in Seattle.
- [12:55]
Eco-conscious Student
I also don't use AI much, especially for schoolwork, mostly because the writing is really robotic and I don't like the way the essays come out.
- [13:03]
Hardworking Student
I don't use AI because I find that I get the most out of my learning when I have to sit with the problem and work it out on my own. And so I just think that it's not worth it to use AI because I lose out on that learning.
- [13:18]
Delaney Ruston
Okay, why did you make this choice?
- [13:20]
Hardworking Student
I think it could be partially my parenting. I've just always been taught to, you know, work hard and like do your own work. And I don't know, I just find like a certain like pride in like doing it myself. And even if it's difficult, like working through, working through it and figuring out on your own, I feel like that's really rewarding.
- [13:41]
Eco-conscious Student
Another thing I wanted to say about my familial influence is so my sisters are very into are very like eco friendly and environmentally aware and they've highlighted the points that AI is very environmentally unfriendly. And that's been a big factor of why I don't use it.
- [14:00]
Delaney Ruston
Oh, okay. Kind of ethically.
- [14:03]
Podcast Host/Producer
Yeah.
- [14:03]
Delaney Ruston
For the planet. Okay, thank you guys. This was super helpful. I want to end with a few thought provoking points from the student who earlier shared her experience of having her paper incorrectly flagged by an AI detector.
- [14:17]
Student with flagged paper
I had one professor in a different class. Basically we got to just like cite at the end of our paper, like write a little AI statement and say this is how I used AI. And that was like really helpful because then you can use it a little bit more, like guilt free if that is something that you want to use more and you're just being more transparent about it. So I really enjoyed that policy in that class. And then the interesting thing she was proposing for like future classes is if you're going to write an essay, having people like orally examined on their essay to see like, how much are you actually engaging in the intellectual process of writing. I took this whole class on human learning in the brain and this was last summer, and AI was definitely a big topic and so it'll be interesting to see kind of how schools continue to navigate that.
- [15:07]
Delaney Ruston
I really appreciated all of these students sharing their thoughts and experiences. There are hundreds of ways that people are using ChatGPT and other large language models with school restarting the conversation about AI, its presence, how it can be used as a tool, and how it can also become a shortcut that replaces doing one's own work feels especially timely. I wish there was a magic button we could push to ensure it's only used in positive ways. Don't we all? But alas, that's not how this works. Since there's no magic button, let's be thinking of strategies in our homes, our personal lives, and in our schools to guide how it's used for good. This is the moment to be having these conversations regularly.
- [15:58]
Podcast Host/Producer
What a gift that you tuned into the show today. The screenagers podcast and Movement is all about learning together how we can best help our youth of all ages, our communities and ourselves best navigate our rapidly changing digital world. Make sure to follow subscribe to the podcast to get each episode automatically and the more subscribers, the easier it is for others to find us. And if you give it a like and write a review, even just one sentence, that helps even more. Check out screenagersmovie.com to get resources for each episode and loads of other resources. Learn about our four Screenagers films and find my weekly parenting blog, TechTalkTuesdays, and be sure to use the search bar to find many topics you might be wondering about among hundreds of my past blogs. Finally, I love hearing from you, so email me at delaneygreennagersmovie.com what ideas do
- [16:55]
Delaney Ruston
you want to hear for future episodes?
- [16:57]
Podcast Host/Producer
Today's show was produced by the following me, your host, Delaney Rustin, Lisa Tabb, Rebecca Tolan, and sound editing was done by Alan Gofinski.