According to a new study published in International Journal of Human Computer Studies, some students use AI chatbots for emotional support and social conversations. The students who do this show high levels of loneliness and lower social support so they turn towards AI chatbots to fill the void. There are many social chatbots like Character AI and Replika that people use for conversation in an engaging, stimulating and empathetic manner. These social chatbots have shifted how humans communicate and as there will be more advancements in them, our socio-cultural environment is going to change as well. This change will be mostly seen in young teens.
The study aimed to provide answers to some questions like why teens are engaging in social conversations with chatbots, how many of them do so and if it is all linked to less social support and more loneliness. For the study, the researchers conducted a survey of 1,599 students from 15 Danish schools and different qualitative and quantitative methods were used for it. The main focus of the study was to find whether students are engaging in friend-like conversations with chatbots, emotionally and casually.
The results of the survey showed that 14.6% students reported having friend-like conversations with chatbots but most of the interactions were utility based and not social. Only 2.4% of students reported having social or emotional conversations with AI chatbots. This shows that this phenomenon is not widespread as many people think so but we cannot say whether it is going to increase in the future or not.
The students who were having emotional conversations with chatbots showed signs of loneliness and they were less supported by their peers as well. Whenever these students are in a lonely, angry or bad mood, they turn to chatbots to share their feelings and use them as coping tools. But as students are turning to chatbots in times of loneliness, this raises concerns about their emotional well being. It is not clear whether chatbots are a cause of loneliness or students or if lonely students are turning towards chatbots during times of loneliness.
There are some limitations in the research too, like it was based on self-participation bias and no clear definition of friend-like conversation was given. There should be more methods to understand the phenomenon of students using social chatbots and more research should be done to understand why they use them.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: New Study Shows Bots Can Increase Online Engagement but This Can Decrease Human-to-Human Interaction
The study aimed to provide answers to some questions like why teens are engaging in social conversations with chatbots, how many of them do so and if it is all linked to less social support and more loneliness. For the study, the researchers conducted a survey of 1,599 students from 15 Danish schools and different qualitative and quantitative methods were used for it. The main focus of the study was to find whether students are engaging in friend-like conversations with chatbots, emotionally and casually.
The results of the survey showed that 14.6% students reported having friend-like conversations with chatbots but most of the interactions were utility based and not social. Only 2.4% of students reported having social or emotional conversations with AI chatbots. This shows that this phenomenon is not widespread as many people think so but we cannot say whether it is going to increase in the future or not.
The students who were having emotional conversations with chatbots showed signs of loneliness and they were less supported by their peers as well. Whenever these students are in a lonely, angry or bad mood, they turn to chatbots to share their feelings and use them as coping tools. But as students are turning to chatbots in times of loneliness, this raises concerns about their emotional well being. It is not clear whether chatbots are a cause of loneliness or students or if lonely students are turning towards chatbots during times of loneliness.
There are some limitations in the research too, like it was based on self-participation bias and no clear definition of friend-like conversation was given. There should be more methods to understand the phenomenon of students using social chatbots and more research should be done to understand why they use them.
Read next: New Study Shows Bots Can Increase Online Engagement but This Can Decrease Human-to-Human Interaction
