When the Social Becomes Non-Human: Young People's Perception of Social Support in Chatbots
Open accessAbstract
Although social support is important for health and well-being, many young people are hesitant to reach out for support. The emerging uptake of chatbots for social and emotional purposes entails opportunities and concerns regarding non-human agents as sources of social support. To explore this, we invited 16 participants (16–21 years) to use and reflect on chatbots as sources of social support. Our participants first interacted with a chatbot for mental health (Woebot) for two weeks. Next, they participated in individual in-depth interviews. As part of the interview session, they were presented with a chatbot prototype providing information to young people. Two months later, the participants reported on their continued use of Woebot. Our findings provide in-depth knowledge about how young people may experience various types of social support—appraisal, informational, emotional, and instrumental support—from chatbots. We summarize implications for theory, practice, and future research.
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Justification for focusing on the young population is rooted in prior research demonstrating distinctive preferences, attitudes, and utilization patterns compared to adults.
“Justification for focusing on the young population is rooted in prior research demonstrating distinctive preferences, attitudes, and utilization patterns compared to adults17,18.”
From Use of automated conversational agents in improving young population mental health: a scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as [18]
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Mediated Social Support for Distress Reduction: AI Chatbots vs. Human
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“Other research even suggests that chatbots may have an advantage over human supporters in terms of being available around the clock and reducing people’s privacy concern and stigmatization over the disclosure of sensitive issues [9][36][54][95].”
BackgroundInfluentialThe Last Decade of HCI Research on Children and Voice-based Conversational Agents
Garg, R., Cui, H., Seligson, S., Zhang, B., Porcheron, M., Clark, L., Cowan, B. R., & Beneteau, E. (2022) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3502016 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Development of a chatbot for depression: adolescent perceptions and recommendations
Dosovitsky, G., & Bunge, E. (2023) · Child and Adolescent Mental Health · doi:10.1111/camh.12627 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Chatbots to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health: Realist Synthesis
Mills, R., Mangone, E., Lesh, N. B., Mohan, D., & Baraitser, P. (2023) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/46761 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
“It seems that both perceived anonymity [43] and reduced fear of negative or judgmental responses are important for disclosure [40].”
Young, J., Jawara, L. M., Nguyen, D. N., Daly, B., Huh-Yoo, J., & Razi, A. (2024) · Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642574 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Li, J., Li, Y., Hu, Y., Ma, C. F., Mei, X., Chan, E. A., & Yorke, J. (2025) · Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing · doi:10.1111/wvn.70059 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Use of automated conversational agents in improving young population mental health: a scoping review
Balan, R., Dobrean, A., & Poetar, C. R. (2024) · npj Digital Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41746-024-01072-1 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
“Justi fi cationforfocusingontheyoungpopulationisrooted in prior research demonstrating distinctive preferences, attitudes, and utilization patterns compared to adults 17,18 .”
Hipgrave, L., Goldie, J., Dennis, S. J., & Coleman, A. (2025) · Frontiers in Digital Health · doi:10.3389/fdgth.2025.1606291 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
The role of conversational AI agents in providing support and social care for isolated individuals
Alotaibi, J., & Alshahre, A. S. (2024) · Alexandria Engineering Journal · doi:10.1016/j.aej.2024.07.098 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Feeling Good and In Control: In-game Tools to Support Targets of Toxicity
Reid, E., Mandryk, R. L., Beres, N. A., Klarkowski, M., & Frommel, J. (2022) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3549498 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Chin, H., Lima, G., Shin, M., Zhunis, A., Cha, C., Choi, J., & Cha, M. (2023) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/40922 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Stakeholder-Centered AI Design: Co-Designing Worker Tools with Gig Workers through Data Probes
Zhang, A., Boltz, A., Lynn, J., Wang, C.-W., & Lee, M. K. (2023) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3581354 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
On the relationship between mind perception and social support of chatbots
Lee, I., & Hahn, S. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1282036 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Perceived Empathy of Technology Scale (PETS): Measuring Empathy of Systems Toward the User
Schmidmaier, M., Rupp, J., Cvetanova, D., & Mayer, S. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642035 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
“They also point out that interacting with an artifcial system can provide “a feeling of anonymity and freedom” [16] that encourages self-disclosure and trust.”
InfluentialDesirable or Distasteful? Exploring Uncertainty in Human-Chatbot Relationships
Pan, S., Cui, J., & Mou, Y. (2024) · International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2023.2256554 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“In retrospect, the primary scope of current chatbot research is limited in experiments, surveys, or recruited interviews (Bialkova, 2023; Brandtzaeg et al., 2021; Pujiarti et al., 2022), either referring to general chatbots (e.g., Chaves & Gerosa, 2021) or with a clear emphasis on the medical…”
van Berkel, N., Sarsenbayeva, Z., & Gonçalves, J. (2022) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102954 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
"This Chatbot Would Never...": Perceived Moral Agency of Mental Health Chatbots
Wester, J., Pohl, H., Hosio, S. J., & van Berkel, N. (2024) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3637410 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
“Their results show that users deem chatbots more suitable for specific types of support, such as informational or emotional support [5].”
AI as your ally: The effects of AI‐assisted venting on negative affect and perceived social support
Hu, M., Chua, X. C. W., Diong, S. F., Kasturiratna, K. T. A. S., Majeed, N. M., & Hartanto, A. (2024) · Applied Psychology Health and Well-Being · doi:10.1111/aphw.12621 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Zhang, C.-B., Li, T.-G., Li, Y., Chang, Y., & Zhang, Z.-P. (2024) · International Journal of Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2024.102822 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Nguyen, H., Nguyen, V., Ludovise, S., & Santagata, R. (2025) · British Journal of Educational Technology · doi:10.1111/bjet.13568 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
SelVReflect: A Guided VR Experience Fostering Reflection on Personal Challenges
Wagener, N., Reicherts, L., Zargham, N., Bartłomiejczyk, N., Scott, A. E., Wang, K., Bentvelzen, M., Stefanidi, E., Mildner, T., Rogers, Y., et al. (2023) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3580763 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
“Furthermore, such systems are shown to be efective for guiding and facilitating refection with the aim of supporting well-being and mental health [5, 26, 48, 51, 52, 55, 67].”
BackgroundCho, Y., Rai, S., Ungar, L., Sedoc, J., & Guntuku, S. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing · doi:10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.698 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Evaluating Generative AI Psychotherapy Chatbots Used by Youth: Cross-Sectional Study
Sobowale, K., Humphrey, D. K., & Zhao, S. Y. (2025) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/79838 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
“Privacy is a major concern for youth and parents [4], though they may not recognize how their privacy is compromised [73].”
Namvarpour, M., Pauwels, H., & Razi, A. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3757548 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
“After relevancy coding of the reviews for online sexual harassment, which resulted in 800 reviews, we conducted a Thematic Analysis to understand the context of inappropriate interactions between Replika and its users, as well as how users perceive and react to these experiences.”
Wang, Q., Jing, S., & Goel, A. K. (2022) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3532106.3533534 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“” Our work thus echoes with some recent work suggesting that for some users AI agents are not preferred resources to ofer adequate social or emotional support [4, 65].”
BackgroundResultExtending Chatbots to Probe Users: Enhancing Complex Decision-Making Through Probing Conversations
Reicherts, L., Park, G.-W., & Rogers, Y. (2022) · International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces · doi:10.1145/3543829.3543832 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
“One main focus in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in recent years has been on designing them as interventions for (mental) health and wellbeing [3, 23–25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 40–42].”
BackgroundEmerging AI individualism: how young people integrate social AI into everyday life
Brandtzæg, P. B., Følstad, A., & Skjuve, M. B. (2025) · Communication and Change · doi:10.1007/s44382-025-00011-2 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Self-citationTransparency Enhances Positive Perceptions of Social Artificial Intelligence
Xu, Y., Bradford, N., & Garg, R. (2023) · Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies · doi:10.1155/2023/5550418 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Gambino, A., & Liu, B. (2022) · Human-Machine Communication · doi:10.30658/hmc.4.6 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“In another study of Woebot, a chatbot for mental health, users specifically mentioned and valued its nature of being unconstrained by time and space, allowing them to potentially just sit on the subway or in their room and receive informational support (Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021).”
BackgroundInfluential“Good” and “Bad” Machine Agency in the Context of Human-AI Communication: The Case of ChatGPT
Brandtzaeg, P. B., You, Y., Wang, X., & Lao, Y. (2023) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-48057-7_1 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
A Formal Understanding of Computational Empathy in Interactive Agents
Brännström, A., Wester, J., & Nieves, J. C. (2022) · Cognitive Systems Research · doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2023.101203 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Park, J., Singh, V. K., & Wiśniewski, P. (2024) · JMIR Medical Informatics · doi:10.2196/62758 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
AI-mediated social support: the prospect of human–AI collaboration
Meng, J., Zhang, R., Qin, J., Lee, Y.-J., & Lee, Y. (2025) · Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication · doi:10.1093/jcmc/zmaf013 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Tool, Threat, Tutor, Talk, and Trend: College Students’ Attitudes toward ChatGPT
Yu, S., Huang, Y., & Wu, T. (2024) · Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.3390/bs14090755 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
“In the study by Bae Brandtzæg et al., nearly half of the participants reported receiving emotional support from the chatbot Woebot, highlighting the importance of the “Talk” function in ChatGPT [36].”
BackgroundUnderstanding Teen Overreliance on AI Companion Chatbots Through Self-Reported Reddit Narratives
Namvarpour, M. (., Brofsky, B., Medina, J. Y., Akter, M., & Razi, A. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790597 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Bedeutung von Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Sozialen Arbeit
Linnemann, G. A., Löhe, J., & Rottkemper, B. (2023) · Soziale Passagen · doi:10.1007/s12592-023-00455-7 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
“Das macht diese Technik auch für die Soziale Arbeit immer interessanter (Brandtzaeg et al. 2021), etwa für den Erstkontakt mit Ratsuchenden, denen Informationen zur Verfügung gestellt werden oder die richtige Ansprechperson empfohlen wird.”
BackgroundInfluentialSocial-Oriented Communication with AI Companions: Benefits, Costs, and Contextual Patterns
Bayor, L., Weinert, C., Maier, C., & Weitzel, T. (2025) · Business & Information Systems Engineering · doi:10.1007/s12599-025-00955-1 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“We contribute to AI companion literature (e.g., Bae Brandtzæg et al. 2021; Skjuve et al. 2022; Pentina et al. 2023) by specifying costs and benefits of social-oriented communication with their AI companion specific subcate-gories as well as contextual patterns.”
Chatbots as Part of Digital Government Service Provision – A User Perspective
Abbas, N., Følstad, A., & Bjørkli, C. A. (2023) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-25581-6_5 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Self-citationKitson, A., Slovák, P., & Antle, A. N. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642488 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Li, Y., Chen, L., & Fu, L. (2024) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2024.2441422 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
“Meanwhile, previous studies have found that emotional support and informational support can differently influence observers’ heuristics toward GAI (Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021; Meng et al., 2023).”
Liu, Y., Zhang, Z., & Wu, Y. (2024) · International journal of human computer interactions · doi:10.1080/10447318.2024.2443242 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“The continuous availability of these chatbots not only enables constant interaction but also provides users with a sense of enjoyment and personalization in their engagements with these digital entities (Brandtzaeg et al., 2021; 2022; Xie et al., 2024).”
Developing a Social Support Framework: Understanding the Reciprocity in Human-Chatbot Relationship
Pan, S., & de Graaf, M. M. A. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713503 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Cultivating Gratitude with a Chatbot
Lee, M., Alejandro, J. C., & IJsselsteijn, W. A. (2023) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2023.2231277 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“…not only because they are available at any time but also because chat-bots do not judge (compared to humans), which helps people to share their thoughts without worrying about being stigmatized for seeking mental health support (Brandtzæg et al., 2021; Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2017; Ta et al., 2020).”
Latif, M. S., Wang, J., Shahzad, M., & Mursil, M. (2024) · Internet Research · doi:10.1108/intr-08-2023-0666 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Adopting Chatbots for Emotional Support: Empirical Evidence from Hong Kong
Liu, Y., Ma, X., Song, C., Huang, D., & Huang, L. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2025.2508911 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“It is essential to recognize that human-AI interaction can have numerous psychological impacts when examining chatbots as a source of emotional support (Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021).”
Lee, F. Y., & Chan, T. J. (2023) · Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research/Advances in social science, education and humanities research · doi:10.2991/978-2-38476-196-8_9 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
The way you assess matters: User interaction design of survey chatbots for mental health
Jin, Y., Chen, L., Zhao, X., & Cai, W. (2024) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103290 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Beyond Text and Speech in Conversational Agents: Mapping the Design Space of Avatars
Rashik, M., Jasim, M., Kucher, K., Sarvghad, A., & Mahyar, N. (2024) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3643834.3661563 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“A singular conversational agent participates in the conversation in single-agent conversational systems [26, 173].”
BackgroundKitson, A., Antle, A. N., Kenny, S., Adhikari, A., Karthik, K., Cimensel, A., & Chan, M. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642723 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Fang, A., Chhabria, H., Maram, A., & Zhu, H. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713115 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Among the wide range of technologies that have been leveraged to aid people’s mental health, such as chatbots [7], wearables [29], and game applications [86], extended reality (XR) including both VR and AR has emerged as perhaps the most rapidly growing and promising tool.”
Indrayanti, I., Salsabila, A. K., Amrita, V., Alhaddad, M. M., Saskia, A. B., & Ramadhani, D. P. (2025) · SSM - Mental Health · doi:10.1016/j.ssmmh.2025.100504 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Jung, Y., Jung, G., Jeong, S., Kim, C., Woo, W., Hong, H., & Lee, U. (2023) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3610028 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“, smart speakers): such social agents could offer a ‘safe and anonymous space’ for social interaction [4].”
BackgroundChatbots in Psychology: Revolutionizing Clinical Support and Mental Health Care
de Filippis, R., & Foysal, A. A. (2024) · Voice of the Publisher · doi:10.4236/vp.2024.103025 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Kuhlmeier, F. O., Gnewuch, U., Lüttke, S., Brakemeier, E., & Mädche, A. (2022) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-06516-3_3 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Wagener, N., Albensoeder, D. C., Reicherts, L., Woźniak, P. W., Rogers, Y., & Niess, J. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713642 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Geng, S., Inayoshi, R., Yang, C.-L., Sramek, Z., Umeda, Y., Kasahara, C., Sato, A. J., Hosio, S. J., & Yatani, K. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713918 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Adolescent-Centric Design of an Online Safety Chatbot
Roehrer, E., Pokawinkoon, P., Watters, P., Sauer, J. D., & Scanlan, J. D. (2024) · Journal of Computer Information Systems · doi:10.1080/08874417.2024.2401991 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“8,9 As the technology continues to improve, chatbots offer a promising avenue for addressing the complex challenges faced by adolescents, by providing an alternative method for receiving information and support.”
Designing Chatbots to Treat Depression in Youth: Qualitative Study
Kuhlmeier, F. O., Bauch, L., Gnewuch, U., & Lüttke, S. (2025) · JMIR Human Factors · doi:10.2196/66632 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Exploring the influence of user characteristics on verbal aggression towards social chatbots
Chin, H., & Yi, M. Y. (2024) · Behaviour and Information Technology · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2024.2362957 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“For these points, our findings are consistent with existing open-domain-related chatbot research (Bae Brandtzæg et al. 2021; Ta et al. 2020) and findings on virtual agents dealing with depressive moods (Lucas et al. 2014).”
InfluentialUsing Nonverbal Cues in Empathic Multi-Modal LLM-Driven Chatbots for Mental Health Support MHCI039
Schmidmaier, M., Rupp, J., Harrich, C., & Mayer, S. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3743724 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“As the use of LLM-based systems raises privacy concerns, especially in our study context [15, 24, 29], we emphasized transparent disclosure of study information and data processing.”
InfluentialCan You Read Between the Lines?: A Comparison of Human and ChatGPT As Support Providers
Hwang, L. J., McKenzie, R., Feng, B., & Pan, W. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2025.2584724 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“First, existing research on human-AI supportive communication has focused on identifying what types of social support chatbots are able to employ and how humans perceive these interactions (e.g., Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021; Ho et al., 2018).”
Exploring Users’ Preferences for Chatbot’s Guidance Type and Timing
Wu, M.-H., Yeh, S.-F., Chang, X.-J., & Chang, Y.-J. (2021) · ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1145/3462204.3481756 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“While the majority of the chatbots have a commercial focus, past findings have also shown that chatbots can provide opportunities to create positive social impact in many domains [9, 31] such as health care [28], education, [7], supporting systems [3], etc.”
BackgroundPeltola, J., Kaipainen, K., Keinonen, K., Kiuru, N. H., & Turunen, M. (2023) · ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) · doi:10.1145/3571884.3597142 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Examining the Content and Form of Supportive Conversations with Chatbots
Meng, J., Rains, S. A., Qin, J., & Rheu, M. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2025.2467450 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“In helping support seekers feel better (Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021; Meng & Dai, 2021; Rains et al., 2020a), it seems likely that chatbots influence the ways in which support seekers talk about their problems.”
Kostka, G., & Zhou, H. (2026) · Technology in Society · doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2026.103379 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Daher, K., Saad, D., Mugellini, E., Lalanne, D., & Khaled, O. A. (2022) · Sensors · doi:10.3390/s22083046 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“Thirdmost was text [47,64,66,70,73,81,88,94,97] and voice [47,48,54,59–61,68,94,97] with 9 out of 32 articles.”
BackgroundInfluentialLi, Y., Ding, X. X., Chen, Y., Li, Y., & Ma, N. (2025) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3715336.3735795 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Núñez-Pacheco, C., Sanches, P., & Olivares-Retamal, J. (2025) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3715336.3735751 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Researchers often motivate the use of these tools as safe and non-judgmental [7, 65], and therefore conducive to an anonymous and safe self-disclosure environment, when compared to a dialogue with a human counterpart.”
The Influence of Unequal Chatbot Treatment on Users in Group Chat
Goetz, M., Wolter, K., & Prilla, M. (2022) · Mensch und Computer (MuC) · doi:10.1145/3543758.3543774 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“In this dyadic relationship, the chatbot can influence human behavior by, for example, the chatbot having a positive influence on mental well-being [3].”
BackgroundButterby, K., & Lombard, N. (2024) · Journal of Gender-Based Violence · doi:10.1332/23986808y2024d000000038 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Oguine, O. C., Park, J. K., Akter, M., Olesk, J., Alluhidan, A., Wisniewski, P., & Badillo-Urquiola, K. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3710995 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“More recently, and with the advances in technology and artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have also begun exploring how youth perceive new types of online social support, like those available from AI chatbots [25, 80, 91].”
Using LLMs for self-care: User and counsellor perspectives
Wester, J., de Jong, S., Pohl, H., & van Berkel, N. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103589 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Give and Take: Perceptions of a Conversational Coach Agent in Fitness Trackers MHCI014
Loerakker, M. B., Stefanidi, E., Niess, J., Mildner, T., & Woźniak, P. W. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3743718 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“These interfaces can help users navigate complex tasks by providing cognitive scaffolding [42, 109, 110, 139], and have been proven effective in guiding users through reflective practices to promote wellbeing and support mental health [18, 20, 70, 78, 79, 87, 105].”
BetterMood: A human-like AI counseling service for adolescents and young adults
Kim, D. H., Baek, S., Lee, J., Lee, T., Park, S., You, B., Hur, J., Kim, M., & Lee, C.-G. (2025) · Digital Health · doi:10.1177/20552076251392294 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“24,25 We de fi ne human-like dialogue as (i) multimodal social cues that convey empathy and social presence, and (ii) low-latency turn-taking that sustains conversational fl ow and rapport.”
Young people's use and experience of the Internet during the COVID-19 lockdown:
Brandtzæg, P. B., & Lüders, M. H. (2021) · First Monday · doi:10.5210/fm.v26i12.11755 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
A Field Test of Popular Chatbots’ Responses To Questions Concerning Negative Body Image
An, R., Byron, C. W., Chen, C., & Xiang, X. (2023) · Health Behavior Research · doi:10.4148/2572-1836.1164 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Supplementing or substituting peer interaction, many adolescents and young adults may demand and receive social cues, advice, and emotional comfort or support from chatbots, that can affect their beliefs, values, and social behaviors profundly (Brandtzaeg et al., 2021; D’Alfonso et al., 2017).”
Ploderer, B., Capel, T., Davaakhuu, N.-E., Tung, N. H., Maichal, D. M., Kuzhiparambil, A. K., Hung, Q., & Reitberger, W. (2025) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3706599.3720221 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Jain, G., Patole, E., & Pareek, S. (2026) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106467 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
A Systematic Literature Review of Generative AI Risks and Harms for Youth
Chang, T., & Razi, A. (2026) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3772363.3798673 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
A Systematic Mapping Study about Technologies for Hedonic Aspects Evaluation in Text-based Chatbots
Mariano, P. A. D. L., Souza, A., Guerino, G. C., Chaves, A. P., & Valentim, N. (2024) · Journal on Interactive Systems · doi:10.5753/jis.2024.4350 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Yousif, N., Youssef, E., & Gad, S. (2024) · European Journal of Education · doi:10.1111/ejed.12889 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Wahbeh, A., Al-Ramahi, M. A., El-Gayar, O., Elnoshokaty, A., & Nasralah, T. (2023) · Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) · doi:10.24251/hicss.2023.392 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“…agents should be interactive and resemble real humans as closely as possible so that conversations with the users provide guidance and useful information (Bae Brandtzæg et al., 2021) and present mental health related content in an interactive and conversational style (Morris et al., 2018).”
InfluentialHelpBot: A Web-Based Chatbot to Handle Depression Among Adolescents
Jusoh, S., Alfawareh, H. M., Kadir, R. A., & Hosseinzadeh, H. (2024) · International Conference on Computing and Artificial Intelligence (ICCAI) · doi:10.1145/3669754.3669777 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Dysthe, K. K., Røssberg, J. I., Brandtzæg, P. B., Skjuve, M. B., Haavet, O. R., Følstad, A., & Klovning, A. (2023) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/37289 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Self-citationEmerging AI Individualism: how young people integrate social AI into everyday lifePreprint
Brandtzæg, P. B., Skjuve, M. B., & Følstad, A. (2024) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4836120 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationWu, C., Kumar, I. K., & Picard, R. W. (2025) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3706599.3719869 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“This aligns with prior research showing that more general mental health chatbots (which do not leverage art therapy principles) can be useful for self-reflection [10, 33].”
InfluentialKhozaei, F., Carbon, C., Islam, Q. U., & Ravari, Z. K. (2025) · The Open Psychology Journal · doi:10.2174/0118743501364500250515043823 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Bowman, R., Thieme, A., Cowan, B. R., & Doherty, G. J. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103618 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
My AI is not My (Virtual) Friend
Krämer, N. C., Kühn, T., & Horstmann, A. C. (2025) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) · doi:10.1145/3717511.3747077 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Schmidmaier, M., Rupp, J., & Mayer, S. (2025) · INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MULTIMODAL INTERACTION · doi:10.1145/3716553.3750759 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bae Brandtzæg, P. B., Skjuve, M., Kristoffer Dysthe, K. K., & Følstad, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Oslo, Norway
- SINTEF Digital (NO)
- SINTEF (NO)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-05-06
- Pages
- 1-13
- OpenAlex
- W3162547504
- Cited by
- 153
- References
- 77
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 4
- FWCI
- 35.43
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Norwegian Research Council (262848)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Keywords
- chatbots, social support, youth, Woebot, mental health, non-human actors, appraisal support, information support, emotional support, instrumental support, help-seeking, chatbot prototype, well-being
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