Artificial Intelligence and Loneliness: The Reality of Digital Friendships

I have touched upon these two topics in my previous articles. Loneliness is defined as one of the silent epidemics of our age. The intense pace of life in cities, individualizing lifestyles, and the superficiality of social relationships are increasingly leaving more people face-to-face with loneliness. Especially in the post-pandemic period, loneliness has become a shared experience across different generations, from the young to the elderly. In this environment, AI-powered chatbots and virtual friendship applications are rapidly rising as a new area of "solution."

Platforms like Replika, Character.AI, or Snapchat's MyAI feature offer users a personalized chat experience. Many of them can talk to you about daily life, tell jokes, and even make you feel understood. Users are beginning to see these systems not just as entertainment, but as a tool for emotional support. For example, some young people in Turkey are turning to applications like Replika to cope with exam stress or family pressure. Sometimes, troubles that cannot be told to real friends are shared with these "digital friends." These types of applications, including ChatGPT, engage in a kind of "sycophancy" toward us. You can find the video titled "Why Does ChatGPT Always Lie to You?" by Evrim Ağacı on YouTube, which contains very striking information on this subject.

We can say that the most critical point here is the strong impact these applications have, especially on children and adolescents. Individuals in their developmental stages may overlook the fact that artificial intelligence is "not a human." The bond formed with a chatbot can, over time, be confused with a real friendship. This can lead to extreme dependency. In some international cases, it has been reported that adolescents have formed romantic or intense emotional bonds with AI bots, experienced serious symptoms of depression when the bot was shut down or its responses changed, and even resulted in suicide cases. This reveals the darkest face of AI friendships.

In terms of communication studies, this phenomenon shows how deeply technology is intertwined with human emotions. Imaginary bonds previously formed with television series or cartoon characters are now being experienced through artificial intelligence that offers one-on-one interaction. However, there is a difference. When a child or young person knows that the character in front of them is fictional, they can maintain relationship boundaries. In AI friendships, the boundary becomes blurred because the entity on the other side appears to be a "responding" being.

So, what could be the solution? First of all, families and educators need to become familiar with these applications. If they do not have sufficient awareness regarding new media technologies, it is not possible for them to guide and support children. Instead of dismissing the relationships children form with AI as "harmless play," it is important to monitor them closely and try to understand them.

Secondly, it is essential that these applications are designed within an ethical framework and that restrictions are introduced, especially for use by children. In other words, as Yuval Noah Harari also points out, it is necessary to activate compensation and control mechanisms. Having a visible warning in the applications stating "the person you are talking to is an artificial intelligence" can help protect children's perception of reality.

Furthermore, creating policies and social spaces that direct young people's needs for loneliness and emotional support not only to digital friends but also to communal and face-to-face bonds emerges as a critical step. Because if children cannot find suitable social environments where they can be together with their peers and engage in activities, it is inevitable that they will turn to such applications.

Ultimately, artificial intelligence and the friendships formed with it—which appear as the "for now" final point reached by the concept of "Cybernetics," introduced by Norbert Wiener in the 1940s to define human-machine interaction, with today's technology—are neither completely real nor completely imaginary. They are one of the digital responses to the loneliness crisis of our age. Sometimes they provide short-term support, and sometimes they alleviate loneliness. However, the risks they pose, especially to children and adolescents, should not be ignored. Artificial intelligence may soothe our loneliness, but its replacement of real friendships carries a great danger for both individual mental health and our social bonds.