Use of Artificial Intelligence by Youth for Emotional Support: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The fast-rising popularity of social media apps and artificial intelligence (AI) related tools has changed how people express emotion, get validation and take care of their mental health by using tools available in the digital world. The study explores how the use of social media, the expression of emotion, and the increasing reliance on AI natural language processing (NLP) to identify and respond to users' emotional and mental states are all connected. Mixed methods were used in the current study to analyze both qualitative data (from users aged less than 18 to 45) and quantitative data. The results show that while AI tools offer non-evaluative, at times questionably false empathetic outputs, they are available 24 hours a day and provide a short-term solution to emotional distress. There are serious ethical implications associated with using them, such as issues related to privacy, threats to users' well-being, emotional dependency on them, and the postponement of much-needed human or professional mental health services. A need for responsible AI design, privacy-protecting technologies, and a balance between AI and human-delivered mental health care being the need of the hour.