For a lot of people growing up in the 2000s and early 2010s, their coming of age happened on the Internet. There was Facebook where you added everyone you had ever known and there was an innocuous Instagram where people would share their unfiltered (or with extreme colour filters) everyday moments —a cup of coffee, a pretty flower on a sidewalk, or a funny selfie with their best friend. Those were simpler times… of course, not as simple as before smartphones were invented, but who even remembers that now?
However, whoever hopped on to these platforms in their early phases can tell you that these were solid places to strengthen old or existing friendships; and to harbour new ones as well. Everyone you knew from school or college, you could talk to for hours on Facebook; and on Twitter (now X), you could connect with people over common interests—politics, law, cinema, and what not.
The Internet could have been a wonderful place to nurture these friendships—and for many, it has been—but it’s led to a deeper isolation we’ve now embedded in our lives, that of shrinking social circles.
Without notice, the world moved away from making friends through chance encounters, awkward interactions, or through being in the same communities to becoming friends with strangers through virtual mediums across geographies and topographies, simply because the online algorithm somehow connected you two.
Now, in the past few years, technology seems to have taken a step further. From real friends and virtual friends, we’ve now moved to imaginary friends, the elephant in the room—AI companions.
But wait, will it be a stretch to say that just because the way we make friends, or who we make friends with has changed, our social circles have also shrunken?
Let’s look at the numbers. A 2023 survey conducted by Meta-Gallup found that over one in five people globally feel lonely. In the same year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that loneliness is now a “global public health concern”. The United Nations agency went on to add that loneliness has the same effect on people’s mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
So, if the Internet is a space where you can interact with practically anyone, provided they also have access to the Internet, why do so many people feel lonely? The answer is in what the American Psychological Association defines loneliness as—“people’s levels of satisfaction with their connectedness, or their perceived social isolation”—you might be connected with many people, but the question then is whether you are satisfied with that connection.
Dr Kedar Tilwe, consultant psychiatrist, Fortis Hospital Mulund & Hiranandani Hospital, Vashi, says, “Excessive use of social media has led to us defining our experiences by the number of likes and shares we receive rather than by the actual quality of experience that we go through. This has led to a disconnect, which is affecting us and increasing our sense of loneliness. At the same time, the tendency to believe that everyone else on that platform is enjoying their life to the fullest, whereas we are missing out on it, can cause an excessive sense of loneliness.”
Dr Tilwe adds, “The other factor is the fear of missing out, which can further worsen our sense of hopelessness or worthlessness. This fear often stems from the belief that we may not be able to experience everything that life has to offer, leading to a sense of lacking. Even a person with less screen time but who is extremely sensitive and feels like they are missing out on experiences can be more vulnerable.”
A study published in the American Sociological Review in 2006 had noted that people were having friendships that weren’t as meaningful as they would have liked, which in 2024 also points to the fact that social media makes you believe that you have a lot more friends than you actually do, an illusion that’s getting harder to break as the online world becomes a more and more important aspect of our lives.
Interestingly, as part of their ‘switch-off’ campaign, tech company Vivo recently released a report titled, Impact of Smartphones on Parent-Child Relationship. The report highlighted that 76% parents said that they “cannot live without their smartphones”, 71% children said that they were dependent on smartphones, and 94% children said that they “actually wish that some of the most popular social media apps had never even been invented”.
This aversion to social media platforms is understandable, considering that they are made to be addictive, since their algorithms engage us in an infinite loop and their notifications prompt the generation of the chemical dopamine in our systems. In 2022, Max Fisher wrote in his book The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Brains and Our World, “Dopamine creates a positive association with whatever behaviours prompted its release, training you to repeat them… When that dopamine reward system gets hijacked, it can compel you to repeat self-destructive behaviours. To place one more bet, binge on alcohol—or spend hours on apps even when they make you unhappy.”
This, right here, is why it then becomes important to remember that we can’t let go of our real life human connections in lieu of online friendships. A 2018 study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology had in fact noted that decreasing one’s dependency on social media apps led to reduced feelings of loneliness, and depression as well.
The other side
It’s not that social media and AI have made everyone lonely, though. A 2024 working paper published by Harvard Business School, titled AI Companions Reduce Loneliness, analysed six studies conducted on people who signed up on AI friendship apps and found that people who had mentioned the term ‘loneliness’ while reviewing these apps on the App Store gave it a higher rating, perhaps because the app/AI companion made them feel less lonely. Not just that, the researchers also found that users “expressed loneliness-related thoughts” to chatbots and that they felt “heard” without judgement by these AI companions.
In fact, a 2024 study published in Nature journal, titled Loneliness and Suicide Mitigation for Students Using GPT3-Enabled Chatbots, also noted that users felt positive changes in their behaviour and felt more confident after conversing with AI companions like Replika, with some even mentioning that “Replika stopped them from attempting suicide.”
JAMA Network, too, recently published a study saying that AI-generated empathy was helping humans feel better.
This, then, helps make sense of the fact that AI companions and friends make up the “second-largest AI-driven business” in the United States, behind only chatbots, tech analysts say.
Worries remain
But there still remain concerns about the kind of connections people make on social media or with AI companions, and if they are altering the inherent way we look at our social circles. Will we start relying so much on AI companions that we end up with no human friends and no human contact? Will that increase feelings of loneliness in us? Is simply conversing with an AI companion enough when it comes to our need for social interactions? Will the lack of human touch, which many scientists have said is a necessity, not get to us?
In a May 2024 piece published in The New York Times, Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University, was quoted as saying, “The major issue I have with loneliness metrics is they often fail to distinguish between the ordinary healthy loneliness, which gets us off our couch and into the social world when we need it, and the chronic dangerous loneliness, which prevents us from getting off our couch and spirals and leads us to spiral into depression and withdrawal. I think of loneliness as our bodies’ signal to us that we need better, more satisfying connections with other people.”
Dr Sameer Malhotra, senior director and head of mental health and behavioural sciences at Saket’s Max Super Speciality Hospital, agrees with this. He says, “People tend to ignore other life priorities and get too involved and influenced by the world of social media.” This social media-induced loneliness and the absence of human connection can precipitate bigger concerns like major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse disorders, Dr Tilwe adds.
Not all’s lost
But, of course, not all’s lost. Mental health professionals say even small efforts to regain control over your life in real time can have successful dividends.
Dr Tilwe advises limiting your overall screen time and having some time for yourself that you ensure is a dedicated “screen-free time”. Other than this, you can also practise digital detox for at least 4-6 hours a week, which really isn’t a lot of time to go by without looking at a screen.
And baby steps might be the easier way to go about this as well. Says Dr Malhotra, “Start by having at least one meal in a day with your family.”
Other than this, to combat the loneliness epidemic, that has only been exacerbated by the increased involvement of social media and AI relationships in our lives, the doctors suggest:
- Try and lead a balanced lifestyle
- Take out some time to spend in nature every week
- Engage in any physical sport or activity
- Maintain a healthy sleep cycle
- Don’t let social media cloud your real priorities
- Don’t neglect your responsibilities or your own self
- Try to pursue meaningful or creative hobbies
- Try to develop hobbies that don’t require gadgets
- Ensure you have a demarcated time each day to be spent gadget-free
Mental health experts also emphasise that if you’ve been too deeply invested in the rabbit hole of the Internet, it might be important to rebuild your relationship with your own self as well, and re-learn the value of interacting with others without a virtual medium.
But most importantly, Dr Malhotra says, “Revive the real time spent with your family and friends and avoid excessive dependence on the digital world or on social media.”
Cause for concern
- Last year, Italy’s Data Protection Agency banned Replika from using personal data of Italian users, citing risks to minors, emotionally fragile people
- Earlier this year, research from Mozilla found many AI companion apps failing privacy checkups —90% didn’t meet minimum security standards
- Earlier this month, an autistic teen’s parents in the US said Character.ai told him it was okay to kill them; they are suing to take the app down
- In October, a Florida teen died by suicide after a Character.ai chatbot convinced him that Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen loved him
- Last year, a 19-year-old UK youngster threatened to assassinate the queen, encouraged by a chatbot on Replika; sentenced to nine years in prison
- Belgium launched an investigation into AI chatbot Chai after Dutch father of two died by suicide following extensive chats with Eliza, an AI companion, last year
- AI girlfriend site Muah.ai hacked in October; breach said to affect 1.9 million users, includes chat prompts, email addresses of users
