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Overconnected Kids
The most common thing kids do with AI chatbots isn’t homework. It’s sex and romance.
Aura’s new report, Overconnected Kids, draws on data from more than 300 children (ages 8–17) enrolled in Aura’s TECHWISE study, along with commercial data from 10,000+ users. Here are some of the findings:
Six themes identified in kids’ AI companion use: Sexual/Romantic roleplay, Creative/Imaginative, Homework Help, Emotional/Mental Health, Advice/Friendship, and Personal Information.
Most common theme: Sexual and romantic roleplay (36% of conversations), nearly three times more frequent than homework help.
Message length: Kids write far more to bots (163 words per message) than to peers (12 words on average).
Tone and depth: Conversations with AI often explore feelings or questions kids don’t share with friends or parents.
Identifies compulsive unlocking patterns: This refers to repeatedly unlocking and relocking phones, with a clear peak at 7:00 a.m., a ritual likened to the “morning cigarette.”
This behavior is strongly linked to elevated “digital stress,” driven by approval anxiety, availability pressure, connection overload, FOMO, and online vigilance.
The bigger picture: kids aren’t just spending more time online - they’re using digital tools, including AI, to explore intimacy, identity, and connection in ways that may be invisible to the adults around them and engaging in addiction-related behaviors in the process.
Meme of the Week
Marianne’s Cut the Fluff:
Back from Holiday…NHS said, “Hold my Beer”
Back from holiday midweek and three days in, it already felt as though I never left. At the same time, I caught myself wondering if it’s too soon to book another holiday. And yet, bizarrely, I drove in on that first morning ‘proper excited’. Not because I thought the work would be calm (it wasn’t, it was on fire), but because I was genuinely stoked to see my colleagues and patients again, even if the whole place was smouldering.
We all say “teamwork makes the dream work” with a bit of a smirk, but in the NHS it’s less cliché and more survival strategy. Step back into the vessel of my team and the load shifts. The gallows humour takes the edge off, the goodwill stitches things together, and the collective grit gets you through another impossible day. The NHS runs on policy and procedure, yes, but really it runs on people giving far more of themselves than is ever written down in a job description.
And here’s the thing: I honestly don’t think you find teams like this outside the NHS — no disrespect meant to other teams. There’s a very particular alchemy in an NHS multidisciplinary team. It’s messy and it’s maddening and it’s magic all at once. It’s what keeps me in the work, even when the fires feel endless. It’s what I love beyond measure. And coming back from holiday, that’s the thing that makes me grateful to be back in the thick of it — singed around the edges, yes, but standing shoulder to shoulder with people I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Ann’s Tool of the Week
Defining Forgiveness
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past." – Lily Tomlin
I heard this line on a Jack Kornfield podcast this week (my go-to when the world feels on fire), and it hit me like a lightning bolt. It reframes forgiveness in a way that isn’t about excusing harm or rushing to reconcile. It’s about releasing the impossible wish that things could have happened differently.
What I love about this framing is that it centers the forgiver more than the forgiven. Forgiveness often gets tilted toward repairing relationships or extending grace to someone else. This definition shifts it back: forgiveness as a practice of lightening the load for the one who’s been carrying it.
Off the Clock
Ann’s Pick: Clueless
Sometimes the perfect antidote to a heavy week is a movie that asks nothing of you except to enjoy it. Clueless is one of those movies for me. Amy Heckerling’s smart and funny take on Emma gave us Cher Horowitz. She is equal parts shallow and wise, well-intentioned and misguided.
And yes, the idea of a high schooler losing their virginity to a college-aged former stepbrother remains incredibly creepy. But the heart of the movie - friendship, self-discovery, the messy work of growing up - still resonates. And with the '90s nostalgia, the soundtrack, and the fashion montages, it’s still totally, like, a classic.
Marianne’s Pick: The Systemic Way Podcast
This week, I tuned into The Systemic Way episode on accent and identity with Jordan Makmihe. What stayed with me was how much is carried in the melody of speech — not just sound, but culture, belonging, and bias. Our ears pick up accents at a limbic level, long before we process words. That means our reactions can be fast, unconscious, and soaked in cultural assumptions.
One of my go-to reflections is ‘we only say what people hear’. For therapists, this podcast is a call to cultural responsiveness. Accent bias isn’t abstract; it can quietly shape who feels heard, who feels “othered,” and how safety is built in the room. Listening systemically means listening beyond words — to rhythm, intonation, the histories a voice carries. It’s a reminder that congruence and care sometimes start with something as simple, and as complex, as how we hear.
Fresh Findings
New Research for Curious Clinicians
Perimenopause: A Time of Increased Risk for First-Onset Mania & Depression
A recent large-scale study (128,294 women, ages ~40–68) using UK Biobank data looked at psychiatric disorder onset in relation to the final menstrual period (FMP).
Key Findings:
During perimenopause (2 years before to 2 years after FMP), the incidence of first‐onset psychiatric disorders rose compared to ~6–10 years before FMP (late reproductive stage).
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is more common in perimenopause vs. pre‐menopause: ~30% higher risk.
The largest risk jump is for mania (i.e., first‐onset mania/bipolar‐type phenomena) — roughly double the risk in perimenopause relative to the late reproductive period.
No significant increase was found for first‐onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders during perimenopause.
After menopause (6–10 years post‐FMP), rates fall back toward the baseline/pre‐menopause levels for most disorders.
Clinical Takeaways
Perimenopause isn't just about hot flashes. There are serious mental health risks, including higher rates of first-onset depression and even mania.
Case studies regarding menopause associated psychosis exist and require more research to understand this phenomenon.
Misdiagnosis risk is real: depressive symptoms might mask emerging mania if clinicians aren’t attentive to history, timing around reproductive aging, or hypomanic/manic symptoms.
Stories from the community
Last week’s question was:
What’s something you loved doing as a kid that you’d still enjoy today if you made time for it?
Community Responses:
Art! I’ve been taking some workshops here and there, and I’ve just started doing some more free flowing projects at home. So fun and freeing!
Just sitting and daydreaming. Especially at night, before I go to sleep.
This week’s question:
What’s your go-to comfort movie?
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