When AI and tech become a place we turn for comfort and connection

At the beginning of this year, I started becoming increasingly aware of how much time I was spending scrolling on my phone.

I noticed that I would often reach for it when I was tired, left alone with my thoughts, emotionally flat, uncomfortable, or simply exhausted from the pace of life. Scrolling offered momentary relief. A small distraction. A way to not quite be where I was.

So, mostly out of curiosity, I decided to run a small experiment. I turned off all social media and stepped away from it completely for a while to see what impact it might have on my sense of well-being.

I’m naturally a positive person, but I have also experienced significant periods of anxiety in my life, and I was curious about the effect constant stimulation and digital connection might quietly be having on my nervous system.

Five months on, I feel surprisingly good.

Less exhausted. Less anxious. More present.

And while I no longer see little updates about what my kids are doing through social media, something else has happened instead. As a family, we make more effort to stay connected directly. We call more. We check in more intentionally. We reach for actual contact instead of passive awareness of each other’s lives. And the same applies to my friendships.

This experiment, alongside my growing awareness of how many people are now turning toward AI for comfort, companionship, advice, or emotional support, is what led me to write this piece.

A recent study published in JMIR Mental Health explored the experiences of people using conversational AI for emotional and mental health support. Participants described feeling heard, validated, emotionally supported, and less alone. Some found it easier to open up to AI than to another person, particularly when struggling with shame, isolation, or fear of judgment.

I think it’s important to approach this conversation with care and nuance.

The need underneath makes sense

The desire for connection, reassurance, understanding, or somewhere to place our thoughts is not something to shame or pathologise. These are deeply human needs.

In many ways, the growing use of AI for emotional support says something important about the world we are living in. People are lonely. Many are emotionally exhausted. Some feel disconnected from community, uncertain about relationships, or unable to access support that feels safe, affordable, or available.

Of course, people are reaching for something that responds immediately, listens attentively, and never seems overwhelmed.

And sometimes, for a moment, that may genuinely help.

AI can offer reflection, prompts for self-awareness, psychoeducation, structure, or even a temporary sense of comfort during difficult moments. For some people, it may serve as a bridge to seeking further support rather than a replacement for it.

There is nothing wrong with wanting support. The important question is whether the support we are turning toward is helping us move further into life, connection, and ourselves.

The value of human connection

At the same time, there are important parts of being human that technology cannot fully replace.

Healing and growth do not happen only through information and understanding. It also happens through nervous system regulation, mutual presence, repair, embodiment, shared experience, and being genuinely known by another person over time.

A chatbot may mirror understanding, but it cannot truly sit with you in the emotional reality of your life.

And while AI may sometimes support reflection or momentarily reduce the sense of isolation, we still need spaces where we can experience ourselves in relationship with other people, with our bodies, with creativity, with nature, with play and with the wider world around us.

Gently widening the ways we seek support

So what might help instead, or alongside it?

Not necessarily abandoning technology altogether. But gently widening the ways we seek connection, support, and regulation in our lives.

Sometimes this begins with creating a little more space to come into contact with what is happening underneath the urge to constantly reach outward for reassurance, distraction, or companionship.

That might look like:

• beginning a journaling practice to explore what you are feeling, needing, or longing for beneath the surface

• engaging in grounding, present moment activities such as cooking, knitting, gardening, pottery, painting, or working with your hands

• spending more time outdoors and allowing your nervous system to slow down through movement, nature, and sensory awareness

• carrying a book with you and allowing yourself to become absorbed in the thoughts, stories, and experiences of other people

• joining a local choir, community group, walking group, class, or book club centred around something that genuinely interests you

• reconnecting with safe people in small and manageable ways, even if the connection feels difficult at first

• creating more moments in the day where you let yourself day-dream and are not immediately reaching for stimulation, answers, or emotional soothing through a screen

• seeking therapy or support where you can be met in a genuinely relational and human way

These things may sound simple, but often healing begins through repeated experiences of presence, creativity, embodiment, community, and being meaningfully connected with ourselves and others.

Often, the longing is what is asking to be met

Unsurprisingly, the longing underneath compulsive technology use is not really about the technology itself.

It is about wanting to feel soothed, understood, connected, purposeful, or less alone.

And those needs make sense.

If you are noticing concern about your own use of AI, or someone you care about’s relationship with technology, approaching the situation gently and without judgment is likely to be far more helpful than fear or criticism.

Most often, the more meaningful question is not:

“What is wrong with this person?”

But rather:

“What need is trying to be met here?”

And from there, perhaps we can begin to widen the possibilities for how that need might be held, supported, and responded to in more human, embodied, and sustaining ways.

It is through connection we heal.

Love Sarah xx