04/15/2026
The impact of AI on mental health
This post has been brewing in my mind for a while now. There are many angles to take (6 to be exact), but I am going to focus on one.
Our natural human yearning for connection.
We all have it. It's ingrained in us for survival, for belonging, for wellbeing. Being part of community increases life expectancy. The drive to connect is strong.
But how we use our energy to connect is where problems can arise and I can sum it up in one sentence -
"If I'm special they'll like me."
With this assumption, we vie for connection by standing out - we need to be the most impressive, the smartest, the thinnest, the best mother, the hardest worker, the wisest, the funniest. We need people to know that we come from an important family or impressive part of town. We tell wild stories so people think we're adventurous/worldly/fun/whatever. We go into debt on status symbols and spend our vacations distracted by making sure people know how special we are.
We become so absorbed with promoting our special story that we don't realize that we start lying/hiding/defending in order to strengthen the narrative that we think will lead to connection.
But lying/hiding/defending is the opposite of connection.
Real connection happens when you can be your true, authentic, messy self. When you are real, then you can relate to other perspectives, and perspective-taking is infinitely more useful for connection than specialness.
And I haven't even gotten to AI yet.
Social media has already contributed to the assumption that being special means to be connected - those "likes" can be very addictive and misleading. But now we can use AI to make us smarter, more articulate, more beautiful, and more special......... and more lonely.
Pro tip - your social media friends who are overnight professional marketers, writers, and authors - just copy that content into AI and ask if this book title, or status, or promotion is AI. Ironically, the lie will not lie about itself. AI will identify itself.
But the point is - AI is helping us to isolate ourselves.
Do you know what connects us? Being vulnerable about a parenting struggle, sharing a picture of a tree that has some meaning for you, showing flexibility in trying to understand perspective that is very different from yours, admitting that world news is a roller coaster right now, telling a joke to promote laughter (instead of to convince people that you are funny), sharing a brand of tea that others might like, etc, etc, etc. Realness connecting with realness - that's where the good stuff is. That's where we can save ourselves. Being together in good and bad.
To quote Christopher Sexton about defining sexy:
"F**k nudes, show me your notes app"
I hope this is helpful.
