Highlights

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first-semester college students who texted a randomly selected fellow first-semester college student every day for two weeks experienced around a nine percent reduction in feelings of loneliness. The same two weeks of daily messaging with a Discord chatbot reduced loneliness by around two percent, which turned out to be the same amount as daily one-sentence journaling.

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Chatbots, he said, could be something like “social junk food.” They might make people feel good in the moment, “but over time, they might not nourish us the same way that human relationships do.”

✏️ Makes me think of what was being discussed in the other 404 article about AI companions during gameplay. 🔗 View Highlight

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A four-week March 2025 study from the MIT Media Lab and OpenAI explored how different types of LLM interaction and conversation impacted users’ mental wellbeing. The paper found that while some instances of chatbot use “initially appeared beneficial in mitigating loneliness,” higher daily LLM usage was associated with “higher loneliness, dependence, and problematic use, and lower socialization.”

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