{"id":588074,"date":"2025-03-22T08:09:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T06:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=588074"},"modified":"2025-03-23T07:31:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T05:31:04","slug":"chatgpt-study-finds-link-between-chatbot-use-and-loneliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/588074-chatgpt-study-finds-link-between-chatbot-use-and-loneliness.html","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT study finds link between chatbot use and loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Higher use of chatbots like ChatGPT may correspond with increased loneliness and less time spent socializing with other people, according to new research from OpenAI in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who spent more time typing or speaking with ChatGPT each day tended to report higher levels of emotional dependence on, and problematic use of, the chatbot, as well as heightened levels of loneliness, according to research released Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings were part of a\u00a0pair<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0studies<\/a>\u00a0conducted by researchers at the two organizations and have not been peer reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 helped kick off a frenzy for generative artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, people have used chatbots for everything from coding to ersatz therapy sessions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As developers like OpenAI push out more sophisticated models and\u00a0voice features<\/a>\u00a0that make them better at mimicking the ways humans communicate, there is arguably more potential for forming parasocial relationships with these chatbots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent months, there have been renewed concerns about the potential emotional harms of this technology, particularly among younger users and those with mental health issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Character Technologies was sued last year after its chatbot\u00a0allegedly encouraged\u00a0suicidal ideation in conversations with minors, including one 14-year-old who took his own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco-based OpenAI sees the new studies as a way to get a better sense of how people interact with, and are affected by, its popular chatbot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of our goals here have really been to empower people to understand what their usage can mean and do this work to inform responsible design,\u201d said Sandhini Agarwal, who heads OpenAI\u2019s trustworthy AI team and co-authored\u00a0the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conduct the studies, the researchers followed nearly 1,000 people for a month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participants had a wide range of prior experience with ChatGPT and were randomly assigned a text-only version of it or\u00a0<\/strong>one of two different voice-based options to use for at least five minutes per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some were told to carry out open-ended chats about anything they wanted; others were told to have personal or non-personal conversations with the service.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers found that people who tend to get more emotionally attached in human relationships and are more trusting of the chatbot were more likely to feel lonelier and more emotionally dependent on ChatGPT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers didn’t find that a more engaging voice led to a more negative outcome, they said.

In the second study, researchers\u00a0used\u00a0software to analyze 3 million user conversations with ChatGPT and also surveyed\u00a0people about how they interact with the chatbot. They found very few people actually use ChatGPT for emotional conversations.

It\u2019s still early days for this body of research and remains unclear how much chatbots may cause people to feel lonelier versus\u00a0how much people prone to a sense of loneliness and emotional dependence may have those feelings exacerbated by chatbots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cathy Mengying Fang, a study co-author and MIT graduate student, said the researchers are wary of people using the\u00a0findings to conclude\u00a0that more usage of the chatbot will necessarily have negative consequences for users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study didn\u2019t control for the amount of time people used the chatbot as a main factor, she said, and didn\u2019t compare to a control group that doesn\u2019t use chatbots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers hope the work leads to more studies on how humans interact with AI. \u201cFocusing on the AI itself is interesting,\u201d said Pat Pataranutaporn, a study co-author and a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. \u201cBut what is really critical, especially when AI is being deployed at scale, is to understand its impact on people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Higher use of chatbots like ChatGPT may correspond with increased loneliness and less time spent socializing with other people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":588075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588076,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588074\/revisions\/588076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}