That lack of connection has led many to seek advice and support from AI, blurring the line between technology and companionship.<\/p>\n
A report by youth centre charity Onside found 39% of young people in England aged between 11 and 18 use chatbots for this reason.<\/p>\n
In the North West, that figure is 38%, and 21% of those who responded said it was easier to talk to AI than to a human.<\/p>\n
The report containing the figures is based from a survey carried out by YouGov of more than 5,000 young people in England.<\/p>\n
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In the North West, 21% of young people said using AI was easier than talking to a real person. [EPA]<\/p>\n
After he finished school, Paisley, who lives in Manchester, went straight into a job where he worked from home.<\/p>\n
In the 20-minute documentary Generation Lonely, he said: “I felt lost, I didn’t know how to speak to people, and I couldn’t figure out why.<\/p>\n
“I was hoping that it [ChatGPT] just would be my friend, and the easiest point of contact was talking to a robot because it gave a response”.<\/p>\n
Sam, who is from Liverpool, produced the documentary to investigate rising loneliness among Gen Z.<\/p>\n
He told the BBC the Covid-19 pandemic had “caused a lot of problems” for a digitally connected, but socially isolated generation.<\/p>\n
“As a 22-year-old myself, thrust into adulthood during a global pandemic, I can relate to Paisley’s struggles and I’m sure many others in their early twenties will too.”<\/p>\n
Sam said he spoke to a lot of young people while researching the documentary who were trying to use AI for support.<\/p>\n
“I think in Paisley’s case he tried talking to AI to sort of fill that void. And he found it didn’t work.<\/p>\n
“And I think that a lot of young people are trying it, but then kind of sometimes it can take them a while to realise that it isn’t something that’s sustainable.<\/p>\n
“I mean, we’ve built a world where it’s easier to talk to a chatbot than a human.”<\/p>\n
He found those he spoke to were asking chatbots the same thing they would ask a friend, like ‘what do you think of my outfit, or what should I do today’.<\/p>\n
“Using an AI chatbot to replace friends is, yeah, one way that you could put it.”<\/p>\n
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Adam Farricker said AI could not replace the role of ‘trusted adults’ [Empower Youth Zones]<\/p>\n
Youth groups give thousands of young people across Greater Manchester somewhere safe to go, and access to “someone trusted to talk to,” said Adam Farricker.<\/p>\n
He runs youth work charity Empower Youth Zones, which runs two sites in Manchester and Salford for more than 15,000 children aged between eight and 19.<\/p>\n
Chatbots are popular with young people because they are “just fast and easily accessible”, especially for those who are isolated, he said.<\/p>\n
“I think a lot of the young people are aware of some of the risks.<\/p>\n
“But then there’s a lot of the young people that we speak to who genuinely think that the information that they’re getting from these resources are factual and that’s the concern that we’ve got.”<\/p>\n
The job of his team is to point people in the direction of services that can help with issues around mental health, wellbeing, anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n
AI “hasn’t got that emotional intelligence that a human’s got,” he said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of children, young people are still developing emotionally and intelligently, so they can’t always conceptualise the information that they’re receiving.<\/p>\n
“And that’s where the trusted adult and that human interaction, whether that’s through friends, family, youth workers, and teachers, is critically important.”<\/p>\n
But he said there is “just not enough” support available to manage these increasing risks due to pressure on health services.<\/p>\n
Part of the draw of AI chatbots is “they’re compelling, personable, and never irritable or jealous or manipulative, at least in theory”, Dr Jennifer Cearns said.<\/p>\n
She is a lecturer in AI Trust in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester who looks at relationships between AI and humans.<\/p>\n
“If you want to speak to one of them at three in the morning, you know, they won’t be grumpy or tell you to stop texting them.”<\/p>\n
But some groups like teenagers lack critical awareness of the use of AI and may not be able to distinguish relationship with a chatbot with human interaction.<\/p>\n
“Most people will at some point say, ‘well, actually, I don’t like that, or actually, I don’t want to talk about that’, or I disagree with you.<\/p>\n
“AI chatbots very rarely do that unless you really tell them to. And so there’s a sort of sycophantic element of basically sort of talking to yourself in a way, like to a mirror. It mirrors back what it thinks you want to hear.”<\/p>\n
‘Harmful’<\/p>\n
She said she is worried about a generation of teenagers used to speaking to AI chatbots “that don’t push back on harmful practises like, you know, misogyny or various types of hate speech and so on”.<\/p>\n
“If they don’t get that push back at a very critical moment in their development when they’re young, if that will then potentially spill over into the way that they interact with other humans a bit later on in life,” she added.<\/p>\n
In making the documentary, Sam said those who he spoke to for research told him they felt “no one was understanding what was going on, especially their parents”.<\/p>\n
“They were like, you know, ‘get out, sort of have this social life that, you know, we had when we were kids’<\/p>\n
“But they do not understand how different it is.”<\/p>\n
Read more stories from Cheshire<\/a>, Lancashire<\/a>, Greater Manchester<\/a> and Merseyside<\/a> on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer<\/a> and follow BBC North West on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n More on this story