Just like every other generation, it seems that today’s teenagers have a complicated relationship with AI. That’s one of the findings of an annual report on Teens and Screens by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA.
As the entertainment industry continues to rapidly transform, the voices of the most impacted generations, Gen Alpha and Gen Z, which includes the 18- to 24-year-old demographic most coveted by many advertisers, are often left unheard. For the past five years, the nonprofit center at the University of California at Los Angeles has sought to change that through its annual Teens and Screens Report, providing important – and often surprising – data about what young people want in stories made for and about them.
And the 2026 Teens and Screens Report reveals that for adolescents and young adults, stories are being told everywhere and on more and more platforms, yet there is still an appetite for “traditional” media and stories as long as they offer something new and show diverse perspectives.
Among the telling findings, this year’s report reveals that young people have a different idea about what constitutes a “story.” For adults, “stories” still mean movies and television. However, for adolescents, stories are found everywhere – on YouTube, in video games, in 30-second videos and, increasingly, in AI-generated content.
YouTube (72.9%) ranked as the top medium for storytelling, with nearly four out of five respondents saying that short-form videos can tell a story. TV shows (70.3%), movies (70.2%), and video games (68.5%) followed closely behind. TikTok (64.2%) scored the highest among social media platforms.
“The changing way young people consume stories presents a real opportunity for content creators – if they listen to what Gen Alpha and Gen Z say they really want,” said Yalda T. Uhls, founder and CEO of CSS, senior author of the study and adjunct professor in UCLA’s psychology department.
I interviewed Uhls about some of the results, especially those related to games.
“The gatekeepers have changed and young people themselves are deciding what they want to watch and what they want to see more of in the content they choose,” Uhls said. “Industry leaders need to ‘tune-in’ to young people themselves as well as the experts who have positive youth development and their well-being in mind. This year’s report clearly illustrates that that is the key to creating quality content that wins over today’s youth.”
Here’s some of the takeaways.
The gaming results
On games, Uhls said, “We asked them what kind of emotions do you feel when you play games, and they said positive emotions at three times the rate of negative emotions, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you as a gamer, but it often surprises adults.”
About 80% of the teens also said they know how to report someone in the games they play if there is negative behavior. It shows that gaming is much better than social media when it comes to reporting negative behavior, Uhls said.
But she also said it was common to hear that young people who play often feel like they can’t find characters who look like them — especially for people of color, LGBTQ+ people, or those with a disability. About 41% of teens of color said they had trouble finding characters that were like them, while half of the LGBTQ+ respondents said the same.
The survey asked what entertainment media can tell a story, and the No. 4 result, which was very close to movies, was video games. So 73% said YouTube, 70% said TV shows, 70% said movies, and 69% said video games. They really feel that games can tell stories, Uhls said.
If the teens didn’t have to worry about spending money, they said the No. 1 thing they would do was watch a movie at the theater. But the second response was to play a new video game. Video games ranked above sports, watching TV and listening to live music.
Uhls said, “I think personally that games are completely misunderstood by adults, and myself included. When my child was younger, she played video games all the time, and because I don’t play video games, I just felt like ‘what?’ But as I read the research, there’s so much research that shows that playing video games can is actually related to a lot of transferable real world skills like STEM learning and laparoscopic surgery. Video games are actually pretty awesome They’re also really great for emotion regulation and neurodiverse people.”
She added, “I just think the video games are misunderstood, and so that’s why it’s really important for adults to understand that they are not playing video games to escape life. They’re doing it because they’re enjoying it and they’re connecting with their friends and they’re feeling good emotions. It’s not making them more angry, so they’re not going to become school shooters, and it’s not making them more stressed. It’s making them feel connected and happy.”
Influencers Need Not Apply – and A-Listers Are a Yawn
The worldwide success of Obsession and Backrooms, both from filmmakers who honed their craft making content for YouTube, shows how strongly these storytellers connect with young audiences. But loving stories from creators raised on YouTube and TikTok doesn’t mean young people want social media fame to carry over to the big screen.
When it comes to who should star in their stories, today’s adolescents are more discerning than the industry might assume: few would cast an influencer, and more would choose an actor they’ve never seen before. Just 16.8% said they would cast an influencer in a movie or TV program while almost 40% said they would rather cast an unknown actor over anyone else.
AI? It’s Complicated
AI is one of the most polarizing topics in Hollywood today and that doesn’t seem to be any different with adolescents. The same optimism and fear that adults feel are also prevalent among Gen Alpha and Gen Z. However, there is a pronounced divide by age.
For the younger end of the spectrum, portrayals of AI in media are compelling, with 44.2% of 10-13-year-olds describing programs about AI as “fascinating,” while only 9.7% used words like “doom.” The numbers are completely reversed by the age of 19, as “doom” was identified as the dominant emotion for 27.4% of study participants while only 17.7% felt “excitement.”
The poll asked teens what they think of when they watch a story with AI as the subject matter. The poll didn’t ask respondents about how they felt about something that’s made with AI.
“What we found was that the younger people felt more excited, and the older people didn’t. And so excitement was the dominant emotion for young kids, but as they got older; they felt more and more doomed,” Uhls said.
But overall, 28% said they were fascinated when they watched a story with AI. 26% said they were excited and 22% said they felt doomed. And doom referred to the notion that AI is going to kill the human race. About 10% said they felt scared about AI.
More Neurodivergence Please
Only 2.8% of speaking or named characters in the top 100 movies of 2025 had a disability – and this gets a thumbs down from younger audiences who overwhelmingly want to see more neurodivergent characters on screen.
A whopping 55% of all adolescents and young adults surveyed feel this way, with that percentage increasing to well into the 70s among youth who identify as LGBTGIA+ or have a disability themselves. Additionally, only 22.7% of respondents believe that current media portrayals of neurodivergence “ring true to real life” most of the time.
Movie Theatres Hit the Trifecta
For the third year in a row, seeing a new movie in theaters was the top-ranked choice for a weekend activity, if money and logistics were not constraints. Playing a new video game was second and going to a live music show placed third.
Relatable Still Rules
For the second consecutive year, relatable stories have risen to the top in terms of the most important things kids and young adults want to watch. And, for the fourth year in a row, friendship rules over romance.
When answering the question, “What specific topics would you like to see in the TV shows and/or movies you watch?,” the top three responses in order were “hopeful, uplifting stories with people beating the odds,” “friendships and social groups,” and “people with lives like mine.” Superheroes placed fifth while partying and/or drugs and drinking alcohol came in dead last.
However, the order changes dramatically by genre. While stories about nonbinary and LGBTQIA+ identities and people placed 17th out of 18th overall, it was first among the LGBTQIA+ community who want to see themselves represented on screen. Meanwhile, boys and young men chose “action and/or fight scenes” first and superheroes second.
And, once again, romance flopped, as 57.3% of respondents said they desire more representation of platonic relationships while 52% believe that romantic relationships in media are more central to the lives of fictional characters than reality. A whopping 56.8% want to see people in different-gender relationships prioritize their friendship instead of turning it into a romance.
Live-Action Back on Top
In a change from last year’s report results, live-action content regained its top spot as the preferred choice for adolescent and young adult audiences vs. animation (58%-42%). This marked an increase of more than 7% from last year.
This year’s annual comprehensive Teens & Screens study asked more than 1,500 adolescents (ages 10-24, reflecting the ages of adolescence as defined by the National Academy of Sciences) about their perceptions, opinions, and beliefs regarding popular media, including TV shows, movies, video games, AI, and social media.
To keep pace with an ever-evolving media climate and adolescent culture, new questions were added, the results of which are reported alongside year-over-year findings. The demographic makeup of participants closely reflects the latest U.S. Census in regard to race and gender. Support for this research was provided by Roblox, Disney, YouTube, Hopelab, the Nielsen Foundation, and Warner Brothers Discovery.
In conjunction with the release of its 2026 report, the Center for Scholars & Storytellers will hold its sixth Annual Teens & Screens Summit on October 22 at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center in Los Angeles.
The by-invitation-only, daylong event features panel sessions presented by thought leaders across the entertainment industry as well as youth activists, researchers, and others working to support kids, teens, and young adults, both on- and off-screen.
This year, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions, will be honored with CSS’ second annual Greg Berlanti Social Impact Award. Company CEO Joe Paulsen, a longtime aide and confidant to Barack Obama, will be on hand to accept the reward and provide brief remarks on behalf of the principals of Higher Ground. The award is presented to an individual or company that has made a lasting impact on youth-centered storytelling in the entertainment industry.
YouTube, Hopelab, The Nielsen Foundation, and Warner Bros. Television supported the independently conducted research. The research focused on 1,500 people in the U.S. from ages 10 to 24.