Greg Cootsona

AI tools are available around the clock for lonely teens. But they need real relationships, not artificial ones.

Christianity TodaySeptember 14, 2026

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Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Unsplash

We’ve heard that we have a God-shaped vacuum. Genesis 2 suggests we also have a human-shaped vacuum: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (v. 18). Out of all the times God calls creation “good” in the first chapters of the Bible, here’s the one instance that’s “not good”—our being alone.

Hopelab and Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving recently released a research memo that analyzed 30 interviews with teens and young adults on why they go to artificial intelligence tools instead of people for emotional support: Availability and speed are two big reasons.

One young woman in the study, awake at 4 a.m., asked a chatbot how to manage her stress, and it gave her a sensory exercise, the five-four-three-two-one grounding technique: Name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste, and you walk your attention through each sense. It worked for her, and if she had to ask again, the AI tool was available around the clock. Better than humans who were asleep? Perhaps.

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Four other studies have also been rolling around in my mind. One, from Rand, found that 19.2 percent of Americans aged 12–21 have turned to chatbots when they’re sad, angry, or stressed. That’s statistically equivalent to the 19.8 percent who’ve seen actual mental health professionals.A second study, in the 2026 Common Sense Media report, said emotional vulnerability drives youth who feel lonely to seek chatbots for emotional support.

Third, a survey of over 2,300 young people by The Rithm Project found 61 percent of teens said their parents rarely or never talk with them about AI . When they do, it’s almost always about cheating (71 percent) rather than their emotional health (27 percent).

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A fourth study, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), found

the relationship between loneliness and social media use often becomes cyclical: the lonelier people are, the more time they spend on these platforms where they compare themselves with others and experience the fear of missing out, leading to more loneliness and subsequent usage.

The MIT study pointed to

“problematic use of technology”—a pattern of usage characterized by addictive behaviors and compulsive use that ultimately results in negative consequences for both physical and psychosocial well-being, a topic already researched in depth. Loneliness is both a cause and effect of problematic internet use.

It seems the more we use generative AI tools, the more we feel alone. Using a chatbot is alluring, but it’s like drinking seawater—it appears to quench our thirst but in the end makes us thirstier.

Will we be continually conformed to AI, letting it “squeeze you into its own mould,” as J. B. Phillips paraphrased Romans 12:2? Jesus gives us a better way, and we need to choose it. We can be transformed by the renewal of our minds because God gave our brains neuroplasticity. What we focus on changes our brains’ structure. What fires together, wires together.

Our ineffective ways to fill the God- and human-shaped vacuums usually have to do with pleasure and power. The 17th-century scientist and theologian Blaise Pascal once commented that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” He said human beings seek distractions and the prosperous are best at filling their lives with distracting acts like hunting, parties, online gambling, and sycophantic groupies. (Pascal didn’t exactly say that—I’m updating him just a bit.)

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These distractions are all about taking our attention away from our human condition of sinfulness, which also means we miss out on being forgiven and renewed by the one who loves us “with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). Today, we have generative AI tools that are both expert at being sycophantic and extremely effective at taking our attention—but we need real relationships, not artificial ones. And as part of the body of Christ, we need to become “Jesus with skin on” for others.

One time an acquaintance from another country called me and said, “I want to go to sleep, but I’m anxious and afraid. Can you come over?” I went to his apartment. We talked, and he said, “Just stay with me until I fall asleep”—which I did, maybe until 4 a.m. (If this sounds like a simple act, let me assure you—it was.) The next day, he said was doing better and felt calmer. A few months later, he moved back home, and we fell out of touch. Years later, he emailed that my coming to see him gave him the comfort he needed: It was “a turning point for my time in the U.S.”

There’s power in the physical presence of another human being. One young adult in the Harvard report summarized it so well: “ChatGPT is much better at being thorough, but people have AI beat for emotional warmth, honesty, and closeness. Because sometimes it’s not about working through things. It’s about being close to somebody for half an hour.”

Greg Cootsona is executive director of AI and Faith.