With the growth of friends who serve as friends online or romantic interests, experts are wondering how technology affects our social connections and relationships in the real world.
According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health book “Art and the Science of League: Why Social Health is the key to live longer, healthier and happier”, can have some benefits to use it as a means of practicing social interactions, but technology should only be used to add, not to replace our real -world relationships.
On Friday, the social health expert and graduate of Harvard’s School of Public Health explained during a panel at the SXSW Conference in Austin that it was skeptical that he could improve people’s social skills.
She noted that companies and he would often benefit from using their friends as a way for people to practice other social conversations and skills to use in the real world.
“It may be true,” she said, but she warned that this kind of practice should not replace real -world connections.
“I want to have a society where people feel at ease and have the opportunity to practice it in person – as if we learn this in schools and practice it in real time, then this only becomes part of our tools on how to go for life,” Killam said.
The author also noted that while she was researching her book, she discovered that “hundreds of millions” users were already using him as a “friend, as a man, as a woman, as a loved one, (or) as a loved one”.
Recent research by Appfigules App Intelligence provider found that the Companion mobile applications were seeing over 652% increase in revenue from year to year in 2024, attracting $ 55 million to consumer spending during the year, for example. The US was the high market for these applications last year, accounting for 30.5% of total consumer spending.
“I have a lot of feelings about it,” Killam said. “On the one hand, I’m worried. I am worried that we have created a culture where people feel like they should be directed to him for society. This is worrying. On the other hand, I think if it is besides our relationships within persons … maybe that can be great. “
Killam agreed that chatbots he as chatgpt may ever be useful, but it recommended that these types of tools be best used as “part of our social health” portfolio “, not as a replacement for current relationships.
“One of the essential principles of social health is that it is important to have different resources, which means not just one. You are not alone with your romantic partner and no one else. You have friends, you talk to collaborators, you talk to Barista and other people. And so if he is one of those sources, I’m open to that. “
“When it becomes a problem is when it becomes the only one or one of the main sources.”
It also touched on other areas where technology intersects with social health, including its impact on the epidemic of loneliness, our “busy” culture, and how people now spend time moving social media or listening to or watching media to talk to other people.
She suggested that she ever call or write a friend in your backward time, rather than turning into technology immediately to have fun.
