Right Words, Wrong Moment: A Clinician-Grounded Analysis of Distress in 19,930 Conversations between Young People and ChatGPT

Marx Wang; Ella Zhang; Cameron Tan; Andrea Mock; Songling Ngo; Zijing Wang; Robert Wolfe; Shirin Amouei; Rachel A. Hanebutt; Desmond C. Ong; Caroline Figueroa; Katie Davis; Anind K. Dey; Alexis Hiniker

arXiv · 2609.35953

Right Words, Wrong Moment: A Clinician-Grounded Analysis of Distress in 19,930 Conversations between Young People and ChatGPT

Marx Wang·Ella Zhang·Cameron Tan·Andrea Mock·Songling Ngo·Zijing Wang·Robert Wolfe·Shirin Amouei·Rachel A. Hanebutt·Desmond C. Ong·Caroline Figueroa·Katie Davis·Anind K. Dey·Alexis Hiniker

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Abstract

Young people increasingly turn to General-Purpose Conversational Agents (GPCAs), such as ChatGPT, in moments of distress. We examine young adults' (ages 18-25) experiences using ChatGPT. We first collected 19,930 ChatGPT conversations and survey data from 158 young adults. We then selected five example conversations reflecting user distress. Finally, we asked ten clinicians to review those five conversations. We found distressed participants reported greater emotional engagement with ChatGPT and greater behavioral change from using it than their peers. When they turned to ChatGPT in moments of acute distress, ChatGPT was quick to give overly dramatic responses and excessive action-oriented suggestions. Clinicians endorsed ChatGPT's availability and much of its wording, but identified seven process failures, such as prematurely jumping to solutions. We translated clinicians' feedback into design guidelines following three stages: 1) asking about safety, 2) de-escalating intensity to restore emotional regulation, and 3) exploring concerns without agreeing with them.

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Marx Wang, Ella Zhang, Cameron Tan, Andrea Mock, Songling Ngo, Zijing Wang, Robert Wolfe, Shirin Amouei, Rachel A. Hanebutt, Desmond C. Ong, Caroline Figueroa, Katie Davis, Anind K. Dey, Alexis Hiniker. 2026-09-28. Right Words, Wrong Moment: A Clinician-Grounded Analysis of Distress in 19,930 Conversations between Young People and ChatGPT. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35953

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