{"id":470990,"date":"2025-07-16T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=470990"},"modified":"2025-07-18T09:57:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:57:54","slug":"chatbots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_es\/education\/higher-education\/2025\/07\/chatbots\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s not just about cheating. How AI is quietly eroding college students’ networks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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En resumen<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

Chatbots may give students quick answers when they have questions, but they won\u2019t help students form relationships that matter for college and life success.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Students don\u2019t have the same incentives to talk to their professors \u2014 or even their classmates \u2014 anymore. Chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude have given them a new path to self-sufficiency. Instead of asking a professor for help on a paper topic, students can go to a chatbot. Instead of forming a study group, students can ask AI for help. These chatbots give them quick responses, on their own timeline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For students juggling school, work and family responsibilities, that ease can seem like a lifesaver. And maybe turning to a chatbot for homework help here and there isn\u2019t such a big deal in isolation. But every time a student decides to ask a question of a chatbot instead of a professor or peer or tutor, that\u2019s one fewer opportunity to build or strengthen a relationship, and the human connections students make on campus are among the most important benefits of college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Freeland-Fisher studies how technology can help or hinder student success at the Clayton Christensen Institute<\/a>. She said the consequences of turning to chatbots for help can compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver time, that means students have fewer and fewer people in their corner who can help them in other moments of struggle, who can help them in ways a bot might not be capable of,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As colleges further embed ChatGPT and other chatbots into campus life, Freeland-Fisher warns lost relationships may become a devastating unintended consequence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asking for help<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christian Alba said he has never turned in an AI-written assignment. Alba, 20, attends College of the Canyons, a large community college north of Los Angeles, where he is studying business and history. And while he hasn\u2019t asked ChatGPT to write any papers for him, he has turned to the technology when a blank page and a blinking cursor seemed overwhelming. He has asked for an outline. He has asked for ideas to get him started on an introduction. He has asked for advice about what to prioritize first. <\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tLeer siguiente<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
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Costly and unreliable: AI and plagiarism detectors wreak havoc in higher ed<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby<\/span> Tara Garc\u00eda Mathewson<\/a><\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to just start something fresh off your mind,\u201d Alba said. \u201cI won\u2019t lie. It\u2019s a helpful tool.\u201d Alba has wondered, though, whether turning to ChatGPT with these sorts of questions represents an overreliance on AI. But Alba, like many others in higher education, worries primarily about AI use as it relates to academic integrity, not social capital. And that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean Rhodes, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has spent decades studying the way college students seek help on campus and how the relationships formed during those interactions end up benefitting the students long-term. Rhodes doesn\u2019t begrudge students integrating chatbots into their workflows, as many of their professors have, but she worries that students will get inferior answers to even simple-sounding questions, like, \u201chow do I change my major?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chatbot might point a student to the registrar\u2019s office, Rhodes said, but had a student asked the question of an advisor, that person may have asked important follow-up questions \u2014 why the student wants the change, for example, which could lead to a deeper conversation about a student\u2019s goals and roadblocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe understand the broader context of students\u2019 lives,\u201d Rhodes said. \u201cThey\u2019re smart but they\u2019re not wise, these tools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhodes and one of her former doctoral students, Sarah Schwartz, created a program called Connected Scholars to help students understand why it\u2019s valuable to talk to professors and have mentors. The program helped them hone their networking skills and understand what people get out of their networks over the course of their lives \u2014 namely, social capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connected Scholars is offered as a semester-long course at U Mass Boston, and a forthcoming paper examines outcomes over the last decade, finding students who take the course are three times more likely to graduate. Over time, Rhodes and her colleagues discovered that the key to the program\u2019s success is getting students past an aversion to asking others for help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students will make a plethora of excuses to avoid asking for help, Rhodes said, ticking off a list of them: \u201c\u2018I don\u2019t want to stand out,\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t want people to realize I don\u2019t fit in here,\u2019 \u2018My culture values independence,\u2019 \u2018I shouldn\u2019t reach out,\u2019 \u2018I\u2019ll get anxious,\u2019 \u2018This person won\u2019t respond.\u2019 If you can get past that and get them to recognize the value of reaching out, it\u2019s pretty amazing what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connections are key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Seeking human help doesn\u2019t only leave students with the resolution to a single problem, it gives them a connection to another person. And that person, down the line could become a friend, a mentor or a business partner \u2014 a \u201cstrong tie,\u201d as social scientists describe their centrality to a person\u2019s network. They could also become a \u201cweak tie\u201d who a student may not see often, but could, importantly, still offer a job lead<\/a> or crucial social support<\/a> one day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Chambliss, a retired sociologist from Hamilton College, emphasized the value of relationships in his 2014 book, \u201cHow College Works,\u201d co-authored with Christopher Takacs. Over the course of their research, the pair found that the key to a successful college experience boiled down to relationships, specifically two or three close friends and one or two trusted adults. Hamilton College goes out of its way to make sure students can form those relationships, structuring work-study to get students into campus offices and around faculty and staff, making room for students of varying athletic abilities on sports teams, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe understand the broader context of students\u2019 lives. They\u2019re smart but they\u2019re not wise, these tools.\u201d<\/p>Jean Rhodes, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chambliss worries that AI-driven chatbots make it too easy to avoid interactions that can lead to important relationships. \u201cWe\u2019re suffering epidemic levels of loneliness in America,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really major problem, historically speaking. It\u2019s very unusual, and it\u2019s profoundly bad for people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As students increasingly turn to artificial intelligence for help and even casual conversation, Chambliss predicted it will make people even more isolated: \u201cIt\u2019s one more place where they won\u2019t have a personal relationship.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

De hecho, un estudio reciente<\/a> by researchers at the MIT Media Lab and OpenAI found that the most frequent users of ChatGPT \u2014 power users \u2014 were more likely to be lonely and isolated from human interaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat scares me about that is that Big Tech would like all of us to be power users,\u201d said Freeland-Fisher. \u201cThat\u2019s in the fabric of the business model of a technology company.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesenia Pacheco is preparing to re-enroll in Long Beach City College for her final semester after more than a year off. Last time she was on campus, ChatGPT existed, but it wasn\u2019t widely used. Now she knows she\u2019s returning to a college where ChatGPT is deeply embedded in students\u2019 as well as faculty and staff\u2019s lives, but Pacheco expects she\u2019ll go back to her old habits \u2014 going to her professors\u2019 office hours and sticking around after class to ask them questions. She sees the value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She understands why others might not. Today\u2019s high schoolers, she has noticed, are not used to talking to adults or building mentor-style relationships. At 24, she knows why they matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA chatbot,\u201d she said, \u201cisn\u2019t going to give you a letter of recommendation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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AI chatbots can cushion the high school counselor shortage \u2014 but are they bad for students?<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Los dos distritos escolares m\u00e1s grandes de California fracasaron en los acuerdos de IA. Aqu\u00ed hay lecciones de sus errores.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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