Abstract

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is transforming how young people search for information solve everyday problems make decisions and evaluate knowledge. Among Indian youth generative AI is increasingly used for education career planning communication entertainment and personal decision-making creating new forms of technological dependence. This paper examines the social consequences of AI dependence by focusing on human decision-making individual autonomy and everyday knowledge practices. It explores how repeated reliance on AI-generated recommendations may influence confidence in personal judgment information-seeking behaviour and the ability to independently evaluate alternatives. Drawing upon recent scholarship on cognitive offloading human-AI interaction digital dependence and critical thinking the study argues that AI dependence is not inherently negative but becomes socially consequential when technological assistance gradually replaces independent reasoning. The anal