Chatting Away Loneliness: Embracing New Connections Between Humans and Artificial Intelligence
Downloads
The rise in the prevalence of loneliness is closely associated with the increasing utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as AI chatbot companionship (AICC), which are becoming increasingly employed by individuals experiencing loneliness. However, there is a lack of studies that attempt to address the psychological impact of using chatbots. The aim of this research is to investigate the correlation between the phenomenon of loneliness experienced by humans and the increased use of chatbot companionship through quantitative correlational analysis. The findings of the primary data analysis, which was based on research participants (n=237), suggest a significant relationship between loneliness and perceived use of AICC. The present finding highlights the importance of using AICC cautiously in early adulthood, as such technology may alleviate feelings of loneliness, overreliance has the potential to adversely impact the development of meaningful real-life social connections and relationships.
Bickmore T. W., & Picard R. W. (2005). Establishing and maintaining long-term human computer relationships. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 12(2), 293–327. https://doi.org/10.1145/1067860.1067867
Boine, C. (2023). Emotional attachment to AI companions and European law. MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing, https://doi.org/10.21428/2c646de5.db67ec7f
Cacioppo, J. T., & Cacioppo, S. (2018). Loneliness in the Modern Age: An Evolutionary Theory of Loneliness (ETL). Dalam Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 58, hlm. 127–197). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2018.03.003
Coutinho-Mason, H. (2021, February 16). Millions of Chinese are embracing AI companions. you will do soon, too. Medium. https://medium.com/the-future-normal/millions-of-chinese-are-embracing-ai-companions-you-will-do-soon-too-a447cdcd7629
Crawford, J., Allen, K. A., Pani, B., & Cowling, M. (2024). When artificial intelligence substitutes humans in higher education: the cost of loneliness, student success, and retention. Studies in Higher Education, 49(5), 883–897. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2326956
Croes, E. A. J., & Antheunis, M. L. (2021). Can we be friends with Mitsuku? A longitudinal study on the process of relationship formation between humans and a social chatbot. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(1), 279-300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520959463
Demeure, V., Niewiadomski, R. & Pelachaud, C. (2011). How is believability of a virtual agent related to warmth, competence, personification, and embodiment?. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 20(5), 431–448. https://doi.org/10.1162/PRES_a_00065
Dhimolea, T. K., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., & Lin, L. (2022). Supporting social and emotional well-being with Artificial Intelligence. Educational Communications and Technology: Issues and Innovations, 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84729-6_8
Erikson, E. (1950). Childhood and society. New York, NY: Norton.
Fatriani, D. F. (2019). Hubungan dukungan sosial denggan kesepian pada mahasiswa tahun pertama yang merantau di universitas X jakarta [Universitas Tarumanagara]. Thesis. http://repository.untar.ac.id/id/eprint/35935
Field, A. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics. Sage Publications.
Gaubert, J. (2021). Ai Love you: Meet xiaoice, China’s virtual boyfriend. euronews. https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/08/26/meet-xiaoice-the-ai-chatbot-lover-dispelling-the-loneliness-of-china-s-city-dwellers
Graziano, M. S. (2013). Consciousness and the social brain. Oxford University Press, USA.
Guingrich, R., & Graziano, M. (2023). Chatbots as social companions: Perceiving consciousness, human likeness, and social health benefits in machines [Data set]. Princeton University. https://doi.org/10.34770/8KYD-5V18
Health Collaborative Center. (2023). Riset HCC: Banyak Warga Jabodetabek alami kesepian: Databoks. Pusat Data Ekonomi dan Bisnis Indonesia. https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2023/12/20/riset-hcc-banyak-warga-jabodetabek-alami-kesepian
Herbener, A. B., and Damholdt, M., F. (2024) Are lonely youngsters turning to chatbots for companionship? The relationship between chatbot usage and social connectedness in danish high-school students. SSRN http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4801345
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352
Jacobs, K. A. (2024). Digital Loneliness—changes of social recognition through AI companions. Frontiers in Digital Health, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2024.1281037
Korteling, J. E., van de Boer-Visschedijk, G. C., Blankendaal, R. A., Boonekamp, R. C., & Eikelboom, A. R. (2021). Human-versus Artificial Intelligence. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2021.622364
Lopatovska, I., & Oropeza, H. (2018). User interactions with “Alexa” in public academic space. Proceedings of the association for information science and technology, 55(1), 309-318. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2018.14505501034
Laestadius, L., Bishop, A., Gonzalez, M., Illenčík, D. & Campos-Castillo, C. (2022). Too human and not human enough: A grounded theory analysis of mental health harms from emotional dependence on the social chatbot Replika. New Media & Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448221142007
Loveys, K., Fricchione, G., Kolappa, K., Sagar, M., & Broadbent, E. (2019). Reducing patient loneliness with artificial agents: Design insights from evolutionary neuropsychiatry. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(7), e13664. https://doi.org/10.2196/13664
Luhmann, M., & Hawkley, L. C. (2016). Age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. Developmental Psychology, 52(6), 943–959. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000117
Marriott, H. R., & Pitardi, V. (2024). One is the loneliest number… Two can be as bad as one. The influence of AI Friendship Apps on users' well‐being and addiction. Psychology & Marketing, 41(1), 86-101. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21899
Merrill, K., Kim, J., & Collins, C. (2022). Ai companions for lonely individuals and the role of Social Presence. Communication Research Reports, 39(2), 93–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2022.2045929
Müller, K. W., Dreier, M., Beutel, M. E., Duven, E., Giralt, S., & Wölfling, K. (2016). A hidden type of internet addiction? intense and addictive use of social networking sites in adolescents. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 172–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.007
Mujeeb S., Javed M. H., & Arshad T. (2017). Aquabot: A diagnostic chatbot for achluophobia and autism. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 8(9), 209–216. https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2017.080930
Pani, B., Crawford, J., & Allen, K.-A. (2024). Can generative artificial intelligence foster belongingness, social support, and reduce loneliness? A conceptual analysis. Applications of Generative AI, 261–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46238-2_13
Pazzanese, C. (2024, March 28). Using AI Chatbots to ease loneliness. The Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/03/lifting-a-few-with-my-chatbot/
Pentina, I., Hancock, T., & Xie, T. (2023). Exploring relationship development with social chatbots: A mixed-method study of Replika. Computers in Human Behavior, 140, 107600. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107600
Qualter, P., Vanhalst, J., Harris, R., Van Roekel, E., Lodder, G., Bangee, M., Maes, M., & Verhagen, M. (2015). Loneliness across the life span. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 250–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615568999
Rodriguez-Martinez, A., Amezcua-Aguilar, T., Cortés-Moreno, J., & Jiménez-Delgado, J. J. (2023). Qualitative analysis of conversational chatbots to alleviate loneliness in older adults as a strategy for Emotional Health. Healthcare, 12(1), 62. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12010062
Roose, K. (2024, October 24). Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html
Russell, D. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 20-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6601_2
Shum H. Y., He X. D., Li D. (2018). From Eliza to XiaoIce: Challenges and opportunities with social chatbots. Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering, 19(1), 10–26. https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1700826
Suryadi, D. (2021). Hubungan antara harga diri dengan kesepian pada remaja akhir di jabodetabek selama pandemi covid-19. Jurnal Muara Medika dan Psikologi Klinis, 1(2), 169-176. https://doi.org/10.24912/jmmpk.v1i2.17894
Takahashi, T. D. (2019). The Inspiring Possibilities and Sobering Realities of Making Virtual Beings. Venture Beat. Available online: https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/26/the-deanbeat-the-inspiring-possibilities-and-sobering-realities-of-making-virtual-beings/
Valtolina, S., & Hu, L. (2021). Charlie: A chatbot to improve the elderly quality of life and to make them more active to fight their sense of loneliness. CHItaly 2021: 14th Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3464385.3464726
Wang, Q., Camacho, I., Jing, S., & Goel, A. K. (2022). Understanding the design space of AI-mediated social interaction in online learning: Challenges and opportunities. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3512977
Xing, J., & Jiang, Q. (2024). Factors influencing user experience in AI chat systems–a satisfaction study based on factor analysis and linear regression. Kybernetes. doi.org/10.1108/K-10-2023-2237
Xie, T., Pentina, I. (2022). Attachment theory as a framework to understand relationships with social chatbots: A case study of Replika. Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, 2046–2055, http://hdl.handle.net/10125/79590
Zhang, A., Xiong, S., Peng, Y., Zeng, Y., Zeng, C., Yang, Y., & Zhang, B. (2022). Perceived stress and mobile phone addiction among college students: The roles of self-control and security. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 1005062
Copyright (c) 2025 Samuel Vandhika, Riana Sahrani
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
INSAN Jurnal Psikologi dan Kesehatan Mental is a periodical journal publisher with Open Access principles and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0); therefore, the copyright remains with the author.
With this license, anyone has the right to use any information and re-distribute the content of this journal for any purposes, including commercial purposes. This can be done as long as the person satisfies the following two conditions; (1) the person is obliged to provide a proper attribution by citing the original source and indicate any changes they have made; and (2) the person is strictly not allowed to make any restrictions, both legal and technological limitations, that restrict others to have the same level of distribution rights.
The manuscript copyright remains with the author; therefore, INSAN JPKM do not and will not request for copyright transfer on all published manuscripts in INSAN JPKM.
