Artificial Intelligence, Intergenerational Digital Divide

The accelerating diffusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications into the daily lives of young students in semi-urban India has generated not only educational consequences but also profound sociological dislocations – most acutely, a deepening intergenerational digital divide that strains family communication, erodes shared cultural reference points, and reconfigures the relational dynamics of the household unit. The present empirical investigation examines these social and familial dimensions of AI adoption among students enrolled at Govt. L.B.S. P.G. College, Sironj, Vidisha district, Madhya Pradesh – a semi-urban institution with 3,500 enrolled students situated within a community where joint family structures, intergenerational co-residence, and traditional communicative norms retain considerable force. Employing purposive sampling, 50 respondents (25 male, 25 female) were engaged through a structured interview schedule; secondary data were assembled from 27 published academic sources. Following systematic frequency-percentage tabulation across eight data variables, principal findings reveal that: (i) 78% of students report their parents or guardians are unable to use or understand any AI platform; (ii) 70% observe a measurable reduction in the quality of family conversation attributable to AI-mediated screen engagement; (iii) 62% experience conflict with family members over AI and smartphone use frequency; (iv) 74% report that parents express concern about, but lack capacity to monitor, their AI usage; (v) 58% acknowledge that AI platforms have become a preferred medium of social interaction, supplanting direct peer and family communication; and (vi) 66% express desire for structured family awareness programmes on AI. The investigation concludes that the intergenerational digital divide generated by differential AI adoption constitutes a substantive social problem with consequences for household harmony, cultural transmission, and youth development – demanding coordinated responses from educational institutions, families, and local governance bodies.