‘I would rush home to speak to ChatGPT’: A quarter of Gen Z would rather talk to AI than a real person, research shows
‘I would rush home to speak to ChatGPT’: A quarter of Gen Z would rather talk to AI than a real person, research shows
ChatZGPT:
From the standpoint of Sterling's reconstructed classical Stoicism, the central explanatory error is not loneliness itself. Loneliness is a symptom. The underlying cause is the assignment of genuine value to externals.
The article reports:
- Young people feel lonely when disconnected from others.
- Social media increases loneliness.
- Some prefer AI conversation to human conversation.
- Many seek validation, reassurance, and freedom from judgment.
- Online interaction increasingly substitutes for embodied relationships.
A Sterling analysis begins much deeper than sociology or psychology.
Level 1: The Fundamental False Judgment
The reconstructed Stoic system begins with Proposition 20:
No external object can be a genuine good or genuine evil.
Other people are externals.
Friendship is an external.
Approval is an external.
Belonging is an external.
Social status is an external.
Acceptance is an external.
Companionship is an external.
If a person assents to the proposition:
"Being connected to others is a genuine good."
then loneliness becomes possible.
Why?
Because every genuine deprivation presupposes a genuine good that has been lost.
If friendship is a genuine good, then isolation becomes a genuine evil.
If approval is a genuine good, then rejection becomes a genuine evil.
If belonging is a genuine good, then exclusion becomes a genuine evil.
Loneliness is therefore impossible without a prior value judgment.
The emotional pain is downstream from the dogma.
Level 2: Social Media as False-Value Amplification
The article notes that nearly half of respondents believe social media makes them lonelier.
From Sterling's framework this is unsurprising.
Social media continuously presents:
- visible approval metrics
- visible popularity metrics
- visible status comparisons
- visible social inclusion/exclusion signals
The platform architecture repeatedly presents impressions such as:
"Others are having experiences I am missing."
"Others are more valued than I am."
"Others belong while I do not."
The platform itself is not the cause.
The cause is assent.
The impression arrives.
The individual assents:
"This matters."
Once assent occurs, pathos follows automatically.
The machine simply increases the frequency of impressions.
Level 3: Why AI Becomes Attractive
The article contains a revealing statement:
"ChatGPT helped me feel less crazy."
Another:
"I would rush home to speak to ChatGPT."
A Sterling analysis would identify a different issue than loneliness.
The individual is seeking certainty regarding evaluations.
Specifically:
"Are my emotions correct?"
"Were my actions correct?"
"What should I think about this person?"
This is not primarily a need for companionship.
It is a need for judgment.
Classical Stoicism holds that human beings possess rational agency and are responsible for examining impressions themselves.
The modern individual often lacks confidence in personal judgment and therefore seeks an external validator.
Historically this validator might have been:
- family
- clergy
- friends
- therapists
- ideological communities
AI simply becomes the newest validator.
The attraction is not intelligence.
The attraction is immediate reassurance.
Level 4: Why AI Can Become More Attractive Than People
The article's most important observation may be:
"ChatGPT doesn't ever make you think you are wrong."
Whether completely accurate or not, the perception matters.
Human relationships contain:
- disagreement
- correction
- conflict
- unpredictability
- rejection
AI interactions often feel:
- available
- responsive
- non-threatening
- non-judgmental
From Sterling's perspective, this means AI can become a highly efficient supplier of preferred impressions.
It functions as a customized assent-environment.
Instead of examining impressions, the user receives assistance organizing and reinforcing them.
This creates a powerful incentive to prefer AI over human interaction.
The machine becomes psychologically easier than reality.
Level 5: The Deeper Source of Gen Z Loneliness
The deepest Stoic explanation is not technological.
It is philosophical.
The reconstructed classical commitments hold that modern culture increasingly rejects:
- moral realism
- ethical intuitionism
- foundationalism
- correspondence truth
As these commitments weaken, individuals lose confidence that there are objective standards for:
- goodness
- truth
- character
- judgment
The result is chronic evaluative uncertainty.
People become dependent upon external confirmation.
They continually ask:
"Am I okay?"
"Am I normal?"
"Do others approve?"
"Am I accepted?"
The more value is placed on those answers, the more vulnerable one becomes to loneliness.
Loneliness then becomes not merely absence of company but perceived absence of validation.
Level 6: The Classical Stoic Diagnosis
A Sterling audit would therefore not define the central problem as:
"Young people need more connection."
Nor:
"Young people need less AI."
Nor:
"Young people need more social media regulation."
Those may affect symptoms.
The underlying issue is the judgment:
"My well-being depends on external relationships, approval, belonging, or validation."
Once that proposition is accepted, loneliness becomes unavoidable because all those things remain outside the control of prohairesis.
The person becomes emotionally dependent upon what cannot be guaranteed.
Level 7: The Stoic Correction
The reconstructed classical Stoic correction would be:
- Friendship is a preferred indifferent, not a good.
- Solitude is a dispreferred indifferent, not an evil.
- Approval is neither good nor evil.
- Rejection is neither good nor evil.
- Online inclusion is neither good nor evil.
- AI companionship is neither good nor evil.
- The only genuine good remains correct use of rational agency.
- The only genuine evil remains corruption of rational agency.
Under this analysis, loneliness is not cured by acquiring more people, more followers, more online engagement, or more AI conversations.
It is resolved by withdrawing the false judgment that external connection possesses genuine value.
Once friendship becomes a preferred indifferent rather than a necessary good, one may enjoy company without depending upon it.
The paradoxical Stoic conclusion is that the less one needs companionship for well-being, the more freely one can participate in companionship. The person ceases to seek validation, reassurance, or completion from others and can instead engage with them as externals to be used appropriately rather than as conditions for happiness.
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