Youth and AI and Relationship Expectations

Let's talk about unrealistic relationship expectations. Because this recent research explores how it can be a potential concern with adolescent use of AI companions.

Here are the potential benefits and risks for adolescents using AI companions that this article covers:

✅ Can provide safe spaces for identity exploration

✅ Can provide safe spaces for emotional expression

✅ Can help build skills that transfer to human relationships (this is the rehearsal-not-replacement framework I talk about a lot)

🛑 Time displacement

🛑 Psychological dependence

🛑 Unrealistic relationship expectations (no human is always-on and always-agreeable...so expectation distortion over time is part of what shifts the relational bedrock of society)

HOWEVER, none of this is neat-n-tidy because contextual factors play a big role, such as how the AI is used and external resources (including quality not just quantity) the adolescent has in their life.