Kids Help Phone

These cases raise an important question.

What is drawing young people into such personal and potentially vulnerable conversations with AI in the first place? Rebecca Shields is president and CEO of Kids Help Phone, Canada's leading e-mental health service for young people, and a mental health leader with more than 25 years of executive experience.

She's joined by Betty Zeng, the organization's head of innovations and operations.

Rebecca says that for many young people, turning to AI may begin quite naturally as a private space to explore questions about themselves or disclose things they may not yet be ready to share with another person.

So we often want to search up ideas or information.

That exploratory phase, especially on something that's really personal.

Now, at Kids Help Phone, about 78% of all young people reach out to us to tell us something that they've never told somebody else, and of that, we found out that about 58% are talking about identity issues.

So these things can be extremely personal and vulnerable.

I like making new friends maybe.

Presented by Bell Let's Talk with Kids Help Phone as a founding partner, these students are trading in their devices for roller skates, test driving robotic inventions, and playing some good old-fashioned Jenga while talking about their own digital habits.

I set my own limits for myself

and I make sure my parents help me.

Everyone, Anxious and Hairy is out now, so make sure to grab yours today.

And don't go anywhere because after the break, Kids Help Phone is going to help us understand mental health concerns among kids today.

So interesting.

Having you on the spot.

... with iHeartPRIDE Canada.

Welcome back.

Well, according to Kids Help Phone, kids actually start experiencing a spike in mental health challenges related to school in October and November.

So Tamar Brannigan, we're glad to have you here-

And there's new research that suggests even younger kids, the, the generation behind Gen Z, they might even be more addicted to their devices, and that comes at the cost of their physical and mental well-being, according to some new research, a new study on this.

And so, uh, to talk to us right now, uh, we are joined by, uh, the Executive Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Government Relations with the Kids Help Phone, uh, Jenny Nguyen, Ye- Nguyen, with us this afternoon.

Jenny, appreciate you coming on and dealing with me mangling your last name.

[chuckles] All good.

... you know, physical and mental well-being put at risk, what do we mean by that? What tangibly-- uh, what tangible harms are we talking about here?

Yeah.

And so I can share some of the conversations that young people are having with us at Kids Help Phone.

You know, there are certainly cyberbullying is one of the sources of, of impact to stress, anxiety, depression that we're hearing.

So that was very important to me.

On the other side of that, from a philanthropic perspective and more community-oriented, I also volunteer on the foundation board for Kids Help Phone.

And I think youth mental health is... probably one of the most important crises in our community.

And I see it every day through Kids Help Phone, but also having youth, you know, my boys are in their 20s now, but, you know, there's a lot happening that creates a lot of stress for young people today.

And that didn't exist.

Certainly when I was growing up and so that is an area that has been very important to me and I've been involved with Kids Help Phone over the last five years and have really found that to be rewarding to learn about all the great work that that organization is doing in our community.

So I think in general, I think we should all feel a sense of responsibility.

And the best thing to do is to channel that in an area that is interesting or passionate for you, but also where you can contribute.