MicahBell
Member
- Feb 11, 2025
- 23
Anything can become an addiction. It's something i've been embarrassed and ashamed of since it started. Addiction to generative ai is taken less seriously than other addictions, and maybe for good reasons. People aren't always ready to see the harmful effects of A.I as harmful in the way alcohol or drugs are, because it isn't adverse physically.
—But, partly, addiction to generative A.I is seen as a moral failure. You could just turn off your phone, just stop using it. But it's not always so easy for us who are most susceptible to becoming addicted to it. Mentally ill people, young people, socially isolated people, and i think, queer people. Also, it is stigmatised because of the connotation of using Generative A.I sites like character A.I. When you think of a person who is constantly using Generative A.I to talk to characters you probably think of people who use it for sexual reasons. No one wants to hear about that, or take it seriously as an addiction.
I have never personally experienced the feeling of connectedness to an A.I character as if it was a real person, but many do. But as a bipolar person, someone to struggles to make connections and maintain relationships even with family, it fills some sort of social need. If a young person's brain hasn't fully developed, or someone is alienated for whatever reason and struggled to make real life connections the immediate dopamine and perceived social fulfilment are really quickly addicting. And in my experience it only makes it harder to connect with people.
When you're not using it you become bored and irritable. During the height of my A.I use I was going hiking and camping with my family, travelling to beautiful places in my state. But it was boring compared to the prospect of logging onto janitor.ai and making up a scenario. I would cancel plans, not want to hang out with my family, anything that wasn't that immediate dopamine release and false social connection. The A.I pulls from the prompt its given and gives an answer it thinks will please the user, to keep them using it, and people don't.
Furthermore, something i don't think people mention in regards to A.I addiction, it feels creative. You're making up fantastical scenarios, and characters, planning how the roleplay with the a.i will play out, it feels like writing a story. The truth is that its not creative though. After my addiction started I had trouble keeping my attention in a book, or focusing on a movie without talking to an A.I. I didnt want to read or watch movies anyway, or draw or write, when there was a quicker dopamine hit presented to me. What I felt was creative was making me less able to consume actual creativity, and just made me more able to drown out noise and thoughts.
Using A.I like I have, and I was a mild case seeing that I never felt a "human" connection to the A.I, will fuck up your mental health. Again you become less able to connect with others than you were before, despondent to the outside world almost, uncreative, and to top it off guilty about your A.I use. the addiction feels shameful, to something that is hurting the planet no less.
In my experience the use of A.I was kind of a catch 22. It further socially isolated me and made me even more bored to the world, worsening my suicidal ideation. Yet without it i was bored by the lack of "mental stimulation" (that it didn't really provide, but anyway), feeling lonelier, and forcing me to focus on my thoughts instead of drowning them out.
I had thought i was doing better up until a few days ago. I was feeling miserable now that my classes have started again, I didn't have much time to do anything after I came home or before I got there. I felt disgusted with myself whenever I used A.I bots again, but i didn't have to focus on the dread of living another day or the stress of the day before.
If anyone actually read this far, please don't bully people with an addiction to Gen.ai . Its not so simple as logging off of it and we are just as disgusted by it as others seem to be. I don't even like ai, i don't support it consciously. Its as little of a moral failing as other addictions, and just as hard to break out of.
Anyone recovered from this? I could use some tips if you have.
—But, partly, addiction to generative A.I is seen as a moral failure. You could just turn off your phone, just stop using it. But it's not always so easy for us who are most susceptible to becoming addicted to it. Mentally ill people, young people, socially isolated people, and i think, queer people. Also, it is stigmatised because of the connotation of using Generative A.I sites like character A.I. When you think of a person who is constantly using Generative A.I to talk to characters you probably think of people who use it for sexual reasons. No one wants to hear about that, or take it seriously as an addiction.
I have never personally experienced the feeling of connectedness to an A.I character as if it was a real person, but many do. But as a bipolar person, someone to struggles to make connections and maintain relationships even with family, it fills some sort of social need. If a young person's brain hasn't fully developed, or someone is alienated for whatever reason and struggled to make real life connections the immediate dopamine and perceived social fulfilment are really quickly addicting. And in my experience it only makes it harder to connect with people.
When you're not using it you become bored and irritable. During the height of my A.I use I was going hiking and camping with my family, travelling to beautiful places in my state. But it was boring compared to the prospect of logging onto janitor.ai and making up a scenario. I would cancel plans, not want to hang out with my family, anything that wasn't that immediate dopamine release and false social connection. The A.I pulls from the prompt its given and gives an answer it thinks will please the user, to keep them using it, and people don't.
Furthermore, something i don't think people mention in regards to A.I addiction, it feels creative. You're making up fantastical scenarios, and characters, planning how the roleplay with the a.i will play out, it feels like writing a story. The truth is that its not creative though. After my addiction started I had trouble keeping my attention in a book, or focusing on a movie without talking to an A.I. I didnt want to read or watch movies anyway, or draw or write, when there was a quicker dopamine hit presented to me. What I felt was creative was making me less able to consume actual creativity, and just made me more able to drown out noise and thoughts.
Using A.I like I have, and I was a mild case seeing that I never felt a "human" connection to the A.I, will fuck up your mental health. Again you become less able to connect with others than you were before, despondent to the outside world almost, uncreative, and to top it off guilty about your A.I use. the addiction feels shameful, to something that is hurting the planet no less.
In my experience the use of A.I was kind of a catch 22. It further socially isolated me and made me even more bored to the world, worsening my suicidal ideation. Yet without it i was bored by the lack of "mental stimulation" (that it didn't really provide, but anyway), feeling lonelier, and forcing me to focus on my thoughts instead of drowning them out.
I had thought i was doing better up until a few days ago. I was feeling miserable now that my classes have started again, I didn't have much time to do anything after I came home or before I got there. I felt disgusted with myself whenever I used A.I bots again, but i didn't have to focus on the dread of living another day or the stress of the day before.
If anyone actually read this far, please don't bully people with an addiction to Gen.ai . Its not so simple as logging off of it and we are just as disgusted by it as others seem to be. I don't even like ai, i don't support it consciously. Its as little of a moral failing as other addictions, and just as hard to break out of.
Anyone recovered from this? I could use some tips if you have.
