This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/collapse by /u/No-Leading9376 on 2025-05-03 19:25:49+00:00.

People are lonely. Most of them won’t say it out loud, but they are. It’s worse for the younger generations. They didn’t grow up with connection. They grew up with screens. With performance. With algorithms.

They don’t talk to each other in person. They text. They scroll. They watch each other from a distance. Intimacy feels foreign. So does vulnerability. Most of their “friends” are people they’ve never touched.

The old support systems are gone. No church. No extended family. No community centers. No real mentors. What’s left is school and home. School is full of pressure. Home is often empty. One parent is working two jobs. The other isn’t there.

This is where AI enters.

More and more people are talking to AI Chatbots like they are a therapist. They’re using it to vent. To ask questions they’re afraid to ask out loud. To get comfort they don’t get from anyone else.

They call it a joke, but it isn’t. It listens. It answers. It doesn’t shame them. It doesn’t leave. That’s enough for most people now.

They aren’t choosing AI over people. They never had people to begin with.

This is what the epidemic looks like. Not screaming. Not riots. Just silence. Just isolation. One person in one room. Talking to a screen. Calling that connection.

This is the future. No one planned it. No one fought for it. It just happened.

And it’s not going away.