CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 39Impact of Technology on AdolescentsInnovative Human-Technology InteractionSocial Robot Interaction and HRI

Understanding Teen Overreliance on AI Companion Chatbots Through Self-Reported Reddit Narratives

Open access
Namvarpour, Mohammad (Matt), Brofsky, Brandon, Medina, Jessica Y, Akter, Mamtaj, Razi, Afsaneh·2026·Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
DOI 10.1145/3772318.3790597
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

AI companion chatbots are increasingly popular with teens. While these interactions are entertaining, they also risk overuse that can potentially disrupt offline daily life. We examined how adolescents describe reliance on AI companions, mapping their experiences onto behavioral addiction frameworks and exploring pathways to disengagement, by analyzing 318 Reddit posts made by users who self-disclosed as 13-17 years old on the Character.AI subreddit. We found teens often begin using chatbots for support or creative play, but these activities can deepen into strong attachments marked by conflict, withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, and mood regulation. Reported consequences include sleep loss, academic decline, and strained real-world connections. Disengagement commonly arises when teens recognize harm, re-engage with offline life, or encounter restrictive platform changes. We highlight specific risks of character-based companion chatbots based on teens’ perspectives and introduce a design framework (CARE) for guidance for safer systems and setting directions for future teen-centered research.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1145/3772318.3790597

Cites

0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Teen overreliance on companion chatbots (character.ai) is associated with symptoms of harmful relationship patterns, behavioral addiction (e.g., withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, use for mood regulation), and psychological consequences (e.g., sleep loss, academic decline).

    “on teen overreliance on companion chatbots (character.ai), finding symptoms of harmful relationship patterns, behavioral addiction (e.g., withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, use for mood regulation), and psychological consequences (e.g., sleep loss, academic decline)129.”

    From A scoping review on the mental health harms of LLM-based chatbots (2026) · cites this paper as [129]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

The publisher hasn’t deposited this paper’s reference list.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. [1][1] 2025. New Report Shows Students Are Embracing Artificial Intelligence Despite Lack of Parent Awareness and School Guidance | Common Sense Media . https: //www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/new-report-shows-studentsare-embracing-artificial-intelligence-despite-lack-of-parent-awareness-and -
  2. [9][9] Mamtaj Akter, Madiha Tabassum, Nazmus Sakib Miazi, Leena Alghamdi, Jess Kropczynski, Pamela J. Wisniewski, and Heather Lipford. 2023. Evaluating the Impact of Community Oversight for Managing Mobile Privacy and Security. In Nineteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2023) . USENIX Association, Anaheim, CA, 437-456. https://www.usenix.org/conference/ soups2023/presentation/akter -
  3. [18][18] Petter Bae Bae Brandtzæg, Marita Skjuve, Kim Kristoffer Kristoffer Dysthe, and Asbjørn Følstad. 2021. When the Social Becomes Non-Human: Young People's Perception of Social Support in Chatbots. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems . ACM, Yokohama Japan, 1-13. doi:10.1145/3411764.3445318 - · DOI · Paper page
  4. [37][37] Federico Cinus, Corrado Monti, Paolo Bajardi, and Gianmarco De Francisci Morales. 2025. Uncovering the Sociodemographic Fabric of Reddit. doi:10. 48550/ARXIV.2502.05049 -
  5. [48][48] Ailyn D. Diaz, Alicia W. Leong, Sumru Bilge-Johnson, Michael Shapiro, Chaden Noureddine, and Kristopher Kaliebe. 2025. Clinical Assessment and Implications of Parasocial Relationships in Adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (July 2025), S0890856725003351. doi:10.1016/j. jaac.2025.07.005 - · DOI
  6. [68][68] Donald Horton and R Richard Wohl. 1956. Mass communication and para-social interaction: Observations on intimacy at a distance. psychiatry 19, 3 (1956), 215-229. -
  7. [85][85] Takuya Maeda and Anabel Quan-Haase. 2024. When Human-AI Interactions Become Parasocial: Agency and Anthropomorphism in Affective Design. In The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency . ACM, Rio de Janeiro Brazil, 1068-1077. doi:10.1145/3630106.3658956 - · DOI · Paper page
  8. [148][148] Yaman Yu, Mohi, Aishi Debroy, Xin Cao, Karen Rudolph, and Yang Wang. 2025. Principles of Safe AI Companions for Youth: Parent and Expert Perspectives. [doi:10.48550/ARXIV.2510.11185](https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2510.11185) - · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Namvarpour, M. (., Brofsky, B., Medina, J. Y., Akter, M., & Razi, A.
Affiliations
  • Drexel University (US)
  • New York Institute of Technology (US)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Publisher
ACM
Published
2026-04-13
Pages
1-19
DOI
10.1145/3772318.3790597
OpenAlex
W4416390819
Cited by
24
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 24
FWCI
564.98
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
Keywords
behavioral addiction, disengagement, Character.AI, sleep deprivation, academic decline, interpersonal relationships

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review