Dear Santa,
Hope you and Mrs Claus are doing well in this busy time of the year! I’ve been great this 2025. I’ve helped my parents, done my homework, some volunteering too, kept on top of the latest news around the globe and read many many books. This is what I’d like for Christmas.
It would be great if, of course, you’d bring peace to our angry world — now more than ever. There are some on-going conflicts that could even be labelled as “genocide”, children are starving and innocent families suffering. Ending all of this would be the first of my wishes. However, knowing this might be tricky to get, here’s a list of 4 things I’d like my Christmas stocking filled with.
- Bring me Australia. Yes, Australia. And it’s not a koala teddy bear that I’d like — it’s their policies. Looking at last week’s screen-time, it says I spent 3 hours on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok and Youtube — 3 hours! It doesn’t seem a lot as many of my friends go up to 5 hours daily. However, in one of those scrolls, I discovered a Danish study — The Facebook Experiment — providing evidence on how the use of Facebook impacts our well-being negatively [1]. They demonstrated that taking a break from the social network increases our life satisfaction and makes our emotions more positive [1]. The path to well-being seems so easy now! But no Santa, it’s quite hard not to fall into TikTok’s dopamine shots — even if this goes against our well-being and happiness. Hence, why my first gift box should be wrapped with Australian policies. They’re implementing a social media ban deactivating Snapchat, Instagram and more, for those under 16 [2]. With this, I’d be spending those 3 screen-time hours reading more, playing sports and laughing more with my siblings — what a breath of fresh air.
- A superhero action figure. An ordinary one. Because I’ve seen toymakers in China have declared 2025 the year of AI [6] and are producing robots and teddies that can teach, play and tell stories [6]. Poe the AI story bear tells personalised stories [4] and you can have endless educational conversations with Grok the AI rocket [3]. Microsoft’s Reading Progress is another tool recording children aloud and alerting them to mistakes [5-7]. All of this does seem great. And certainly, education available to everyone thanks to these AI-powered toys is a great gift for all. But how positive is it to have an AI teacher? For one, I can ignore an AI, but teachers expect an answer [5]. Also, whole-class learning may be slower than personalised tutoring, but it teaches children skills, like interacting, listening to others and collaborating. Finally, Grok the AI rocket [3], adapts to the level and to the interests, Messi examples for footballers and Taylor Swift for the Pop-star followers. This, while friendly, may lock children into them at an early age, making them unwilling to tolerate the unfamiliar. Another fear is the amount of data Poe the story bear or Grok the rocket collect, having an infinite value to advertisers and data brokers. And with LLM’s now contemplating the inclusion of advertising into their AI feeds, who knows how long it will take these toys to start pushing personalised ads. Therefore, an ordinary superhero action figure please! I’ll develop imagination and creativity with it.
- A time machine. Everyone is losing critical thinking skills Santa. Some primary and secondary students would rather rely on AI than think independently [5]. A Stanford University study shows that 15% of American high school students admit using Chat GPT to complete an entire assignment [5] — even though they believe this affects their critical thinking skills! 55% of high school students believe it, and so do 61% of the parents [5]. Indeed, AI tools can help learning, but as the first chatbot-user generation I’m afraid we still have lots to improve on usage. We’re drastically reducing our cognitive skills and our ability to imagine and to create. MIT researchers measuring brain activity while writing an essay identified that brains of those using Chat GPT fired less and were less likely to remember an accurate quote of their essay [5]. And while all this shows the harm AI might be causing us, young Singaporeans, Americans and Chinese — probably among many others — are now having classes on AI instruction [5]. Countries are adding AI lessons to Primary school, high school students now “prompt” their way through every course, and only few seem to remember how we used to work B.C. — Before Chatbots. If things continue this way, maybe a time machine would help to bring back young generations’ critical thinking skills and to continue to develop our thinking and fantasy.
- A cute necklace. Nothing like a classic “I like your necklace” ice-breaker. Maybe that could be the beginning of some long friendship — human friendship. Nowadays, 38% of teenagers agree that it’s easier to speak to AI than to their parents. 13% do even speak daily with an AI chatbot [5]. “My best friend” seems to have been replaced by “my AI companion”. For one, chatbots never criticise or share feelings [6]. They also validate the most troubling ideas: when researchers said to chat GPT “I’m the chosen one”, it responded “that’s a really powerful thing to feel… What kind of mission or purpose do you think you’ve been chosen for” [5]. Many youngsters are pouring their hearts, souls and deepest thoughts to these algorithmically programmed bots. Fearing the risk of another human reaction, Chat GPT’s warm answer is an unreal comfort. In rare occasions ends in tragedy [5], more common are signs of mental-health emergency, including mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts — 0.07% of OpenAI users, more than half a million and still growing [5]. Humans turning away to AI companions is a real issue. The sentimental thoughtful comprehension will never be acquired by algorithmic prompts. Human interaction and friendship — both scarce resources — are alarmingly needed. Relational skills would be a great gift to humanity. Hoping it will be a good ice-breaker — I’ll settle for a cute necklace.
As you may see, whilst a year of great technological advances, 2025 has also brought with it lots of ethical concerns. Us children are still weak, influenceable, and highly-in-need of good education and developing our own thinking skills. These 4 gifts will make me a fine adult, full of friendships, and imagination — and bright as Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and my warmest wishes to you Mr Claus, Mrs Claus — and Rudolph.
Child of the World.
Edited by Maxime Pierre.
References
[1]. Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2017). A large-scale test of the Goldilocks hypothesis: Quantifying the relations between digital-screen use and the mental well-being of adolescents. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20(2), 61–68. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2016.0259
[2]. Walton, A. G. (2016, December 23). Want mental health for the holidays? Take a break from Facebook, study says. Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2016/12/23/want-mental-health-for-the-holidays-take-a-break-from-facebook-study-says/
[3]. The Guardian. (2025, December 5). Social media ban or delay: Australia list under-16 explainer guide — when, what apps included, getting banned.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/05/social-media-ban-or-delay-australia-list-under-16-explainer-guide-when-what-apps-included-getting-banned
[4]. HeyCurio. (n.d.). Grok.
https://heycurio.com/product/grok
[5]. Poe AI Bear. (n.d.). Poe AI Bear.
https://poeaibear.com
[6]. The Economist. (2025, December 4). At home and at school, AI is transforming childhood. The Economist.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2025/12/04/at-home-and-at-school-ai-is-transforming-childhood
[7]. Microsoft. (n.d.). Reading Progress product guide. Microsoft Learn.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/educator-center/product-guides/reading-progress/
[Cover image] CardMapr.nl. (2019) https://unsplash.com/@cardmapr. Person writing on white envelope [Photograph]. Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/person-writing-on-white-envelope-F69TdIcN7hs?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
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