From Search Engine to Life Coach: ChatGPT is Influencing Gen-Z
When I checked my phone and saw that my mom had sent me her 17th AI-generated image of the day, I started to regret telling her about ChatGPT. A model that began as a conversational chatbot and occasional question-answerer has evolved into a hub of knowledge—and, for people like my mother, even a source of entertainment.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment when people around me stopped turning to Google and started asking ChatGPT their pressing questions instead. Even simple queries about celebrity names or “Does Hailee Steinfeld always look that good?” have migrated from our longtime search engine to ChatGPT’s waiting arms. Though the answers may be the same at their core, ChatGPT’s responses can feel more appealing than that of Google. ChatGPT’s conversational tone and conciseness make information more readable and engaging. Unlike Google, which frequently offers links, various styles of webpages, pop-ups, and 3,000-word SEO-optimized blog posts, ChatGPT delivers concise, plain-language explanations.
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As a result, ChatGPT can feel more effective for “top-of-funnel” (TOFU) queries, which are related to more learning and exploratory uses like definitions, summaries, checklists, and how-tos. This has been reflected in Google’s declining search traffic, as ChatGPT has gone from 3.7+ billion visits a month in 2024 to 80 million visits a day in 2025. Bold predictions have recently surfaced, suggesting that ChatGPT could surpass Google Search traffic by October 2030 based on analyses of traffic patterns, user behavior, and conversion data. While Google’s new AI Overviews increase impressions—the number of times a link or ad appears in search results—they reduce actual clicks to websites. In contrast, ChatGPT users tend to stay within the platform, with 23x higher conversion rates and 4.4x more economic value per visitor. As of April 2025, ChatGPT had over 800 million users and was handling nearly 1 billion weekly searches.
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But this increase in ChatGPT usage and reliance also means that it's being used outside of its intended purpose. Not to mention, according to recent data from March 2025, more than 45% of ChatGPT users are under the age of 25, indicating that a large percentage of users are Gen-Z.
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How Gen-Z Uses ChatGPT
Gen-Z uses ChatGPT as much for emotional support and entertainment as for productivity. While a majority see it as a helpful work tool, about a third describe it as a companion and 21% use it like a therapist, turning to it for mental health struggles, work conflicts, and personal decisions – like planning, meal prep, and even Love Island voting predictions. Around 37% use it for personal conversations, 24% for games, and 14% just to look busy during slow periods at work.
This is a substantial transition from ChatGPT’s initial and intended usage, which was, shockingly, simply meant to be a “research preview” for OpenAI. The tech company originally released the model to get feedback from the public and improve how InstructGPT – or GPT 3.5 – implements reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). ChatGPT wasn’t even a finished product. The OpenAI team made sure to emphasize in an interview that it wasn’t a fundamentally new or more powerful model, but actually built from earlier versions of their language models and tweaked to be easier to talk to. While the goal was to test it in the real world, ChatGPT’s release instead became a major launch that transformed the lives of its users for worse or for better.
Implications of Gen-Z’s Usage
Now that Gen-Z has started using ChatGPT for ideas, personal conversations, and more, what does it mean for the individual, and what does it mean for modern society? At the individual level, it is almost obvious that ChatGPT has reduced our need to think. A recent MIT study validates and demonstrates this phenomenon, utilizing 54 subjects, all 18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area. Researchers divided participants into 3 groups and asked them to write SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Checking the subjects’ brain activity throughout the study, researchers found that the ChatGPT group had the lowest brain engagement and underperformed at “neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” What’s more concerning, the ChatGPT group also got lazier with each completed essay, eventually just copy-and-pasting straight from the AI chatbot.
This study highlighted that, beyond just our writing skills, using ChatGPT is taking away Gen-Z’s ability to critically think. At the societal level, the loss of the ability to critically think has unbounded negative implications. Critical thinking is how we innovate and advance in everything from education to personal decision-making, helping us navigate the complexities of the modern world. Just take one look around you at the systems we rely on, both physical and abstract – like electricity and the internet – and you’ll see the result of critical thinking in action. Without it, we’re unable to keep redefining what’s possible.
On the therapeutic usage side, experts warn to look out for overdependence. If users rely on ChatGPT for personal connection and advice consistently and often, it can hinder their ability to cope independently and could lead to inaccurate diagnoses or harmful advice. In a generation more aware and proactive about mental health than their parents, ChatGPT presents Gen-Z with both relief and distress. Coping independently and healthily is crucial for a person’s wellbeing, and correlates to one’s ability to solve problems, make responsible decisions, and establish positive relationships. These qualities have helped previous generations move forward emotionally and productively, and are necessary to build a society that is smarter and more understanding.
Although ChatGPT is not human, there is an issue of bias in the emotional responses it provides when used in the therapeutic sense. Trained on massive online datasets, ChatGPT absorbs the internet’s plethora of assumptions, blind spots, and cultural biases, which a human therapist is trained to distinguish and disregard during conversations. ChatGPT is also generally heavily optimistic and encouraging, which, while helpful in many scenarios, is not always what an individual needs when struggling with serious issues. Sometimes a positive answer is not the correct one—reaffirming harmful thoughts or flawed logic, rather than challenging users when they need to be.
In a broader sense, increased and diversified usage of ChatGPT also suggests that its environmental cost is only growing. ChatGPT features high energy demands for both training and using large AI models. Each query consumes far more electricity than a typical Google search, and the servers powering it usually rely on fossil fuels. Our growing reliance on AI for instant answers, summaries, companionship, and even polite phrasing like “please” and “thank you” feeds into a cycle of increasing energy demand. Since AI’s environmental impact is influenced by both the tech and how often we use it, responsible and less dependent use is crucial to reducing AI’s environmental burden.
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The Future of Gen-Z and ChatGPT
Gen-Z often finds it difficult to prioritize mental discipline over convenience and ease. But when we consider what these chatbot shortcuts are actually doing to our ability to think, feel, and connect with others, we have to confront the reality that the benefits of convenience don’t outweigh the long-term costs. These can include missing out on the full value of college, underperforming at work, struggling with communication, and more.
Instead, we can begin limiting how we use ChatGPT and turn to real-world and trustworthy sources for help. We can start believing in our own ability to think again, knowing that growth only comes through effort. ChatGPT is an innovative and undoubtedly helpful tool – but so are our own minds, and the people around us.