\n Around 2 a.m. on a Monday, Emily received a text from a fellow student, Patrick, whom she had gone on a blind date with two days earlier. The pair are juniors at Yale University who were set up by mutual friends. They requested anonymity so CNN agreed to change their names to protect their privacy.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHey Emily! I hope your half-marathon went well \u2014 I\u2019m sure you crushed it,\u201d Patrick wrote with a winky-face emoji. \u201cOkay, bear with me here \u2014 I\u2019m not the best at this kind of thing, but here goes.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In a six-paragraph-long text, Patrick said he would like to \u201chang out more \u2014 whether it\u2019s just as friends or whatever it was we were this weekend.\u201d He added that he wasn\u2019t \u201clooking for anything too serious right now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n At first, Emily didn\u2019t think his reply was anything out of the ordinary. \u201cIt just seemed really proper, and I guess I knew that he was a really nice guy. So, I was just like, maybe this is just how he texts.\u201d But after sharing his message with two friends, who put it through an artificial intelligence detector, she had her answer: \u201cIt was like, 99% AI.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n She was right.\n <\/p>\n
\n Patrick admitted using ChatGPT to craft his text. He said he didn\u2019t have much experience crafting a rejection message: \u201cWhat do I do here? It\u2019s the first time I had seen anyone since my high school girlfriend, which is why I was so nervous and wanted a second opinion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI tried to write my thoughts down, but I wasn\u2019t sure how to format this in a way that\u2019s not, like, really bad, so then I went to Chat,\u201d he said. He gave ChatGPT the situation, his thoughts and emotions, and \u201cChat spit out a response.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Patrick is far from alone. Researchers say a growing number of young people are turning to AI to navigate social situations \u2014 drafting rejection texts, decoding mixed signals and scripting difficult conversations.\n <\/p>\n
\n Experts warn that this habit may be stunting emotional growth, leaving an already isolated generation who came of age during the pandemic even less prepared for the messiness of human connection.\n <\/p>\n
\n Patrick went back-and-forth with the chatbot and \u201ctweaked certain lines here and there, but it was mostly copy and paste\u201d from ChatGPT. \u201cI added an emoji and tried to make it sound more human,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI felt better putting this out there because I wanted to be very clear and forthcoming. I didn\u2019t want to be wishy-washy with it in case she took it the wrong way. I knew if I did it on my own, I would have been wishy-washy,\u201d said Patrick, who considered his move like consulting an expert.\n <\/p>\n
\n Emily said she did not think the text was clear and it made his intentions more confusing. She couldn\u2019t tell from the AI wording \u201cif he wanted to be friends or what.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMy main intention was to be clear in how I was feeling and thinking about the situation,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cLooking back on it, that was pretty poor behavior on my part. I think sitting on it for so long was the reason I went to Chat.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think he was overthinking it,\u201d Emily said. \u201cYou definitely don\u2019t need to use AI; you\u2019re an emotionally sane guy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n She described the interaction as weird but said many of her friends have also turned to artificial intelligence to draft texts to friends or partners, or to analyze social situations \u2014 sometimes pasting entire text chains into a chatbot to decipher what someone might be thinking.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe thought of my little brother using AI to break up with his girlfriend is concerning. Because right now he comes to me, but when\u2019s the day he\u2019s going to turn to AI instead?\u201d She said she is worried that Gen Zers have trouble \u201cconfronting their own feelings.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Emily said she\u2019s also concerned about her generation\u2019s ability to socialize, and some experts agree.\n <\/p>\n
\n Emily\u2019s experience is part of a broader pattern that concerns researchers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Dr. Michael Robb, head of research at Common Sense Media, calls it \u201csocial offloading,\u201d using AI to navigate interpersonal situations, and he said it isn\u2019t limited to Generation Z. He has observed it among Gen Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) and some millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) as well.\n <\/p>\n