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Loneliness and generative AI use for companionship among college students
- Truvace record
- TRV-2026-2580raw data (JSON)
- Version
- v1Published
- First published
- Evidence type
- Survey
- Sources
- 1 sourcePeer-reviewed
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- 1db6732bc353…check it
Generative AI chatbots are a new class of artificial agents that young adults may turn to for emotional companionship, raising questions for the study of interaction between humans and AI. Whether loneliness uniquely predicts AI use for companionship, and whether any such association is specific to companionship-seeking rather than general AI use, has not been examined in a U.S. college sample. Using data from the Healthy Minds Study (HMS) 2024-2025, we examined predictors of AI companionship use among U.S. coll…
The problem
In a survey of 858 US college students, 17% used AI for companionship, and each step up in loneliness was linked to higher odds of doing so (OR 1.21), a link not seen for general AI use.
What this doesn’t fix
Because the data are cross-sectional, the study cannot show that loneliness leads to AI companionship use; loneliness is framed as a candidate predictor to be confirmed in longitudinal research.
Sources
1 on file- Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humansdoi:10.1016/j.chbah.2026.100348
Cite this record
v1Truvace Impact Record TRV-2026-2580, v1: “Loneliness and generative AI use for companionship among college students.” Truvace, 2026-11-12. /record/TRV-2026-2580 (accessed on the day you copy it). sha256 1db6732bc3530b09…
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