Loneliness and AI chatbot dependence in young adults: the mediating role of perceived social support

A study of young adults that lays out, link by link, the path from loneliness to chatbot dependence. The question is not “whether” but “through what”: which process mediates between being lonely and coming to rely on a machine.

The answer: perceived social support. Loneliness lowers the sense that one can count on people, and that drop mediates growing dependence on the chatbot. In other words, the chatbot does not replace people directly — it enters a gap that weakened trust in support from others opened first.

The entry complements the twelve-month Folk and Dunn study: that one shows direction over time, this one the mechanism. For personal use it points to where one can act: not at the chatbot, but at the sense of support from people, because that decides whether the machine becomes a substitute. Caveat: cross-sectional data and a mediation model; the directions need longitudinal confirmation.