Emma Barratt

The Psychological Impact of Digital Isolation: How AI-Driven Social Interactions Shape Human Behavior and Mental Well-Being Felix Eling 3697-3705 Apr 30, 2025 Education The Psychological Impact of Digital Isolation: How AI-Driven Social Interactions Shape Human Behavior and Mental Well-Being Felix Eling Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Pharmacy, Gulu College of Health Sciences, Gulu City, Northern Uganda DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.90400265 Received: 13 March 2025; Revised: 22 March 2025; Accepted: 25 March 2025; Published: 30 April 2025 ABSTRACT The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in social interactions has transformed how humans experience companionship, communication, and mental well-being. This review examines the psychological impact of AI-driven social interactions, focusing on virtual assistants, AI chatbots, and digital companions. It explores the benefits, risks, and ethical concerns associated with AI companionship. A systematic review methodology was employed, detailing inclusion criteria, databases searched, and analysis techniques. Findings suggest that while AI can offer emotional relief and support, over-reliance may disrupt real-world social bonding. Ethical concerns such as data privacy, emotional manipulation, and regulatory gaps are highlighted. The study underscores the need for balanced AI integration in human socialization. The study also addresses gaps in previous literature by examining AI’s influence on different demographic groups and cultural contexts.

Let me tell you a story. Perhaps you can guess where this is going... though it does have a bit of a twist.

I was poking around Google Scholar for publications about the relationship between chatbots and wellness. Oh how useful: a systematic literature review! Let's dig into the findings. 🧵

Infographic with AI slop published in Nature Scientific Reports

"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se

No way!! Oh that's so rad... Loving this for past you, Apocalyptica are awesome.

Look, LLM use in academia isn't just students. You need to be speaking clearly with your collaborators about your writing standards from the beginning. Make people say out loud that they don't write their own articles anymore.

Mind-altering ‘brain weapons’ no longer only science fiction, say researchers UK academics say latest chemicals are ‘wake-up call’ and urge global action to stop weaponisation of neuroscience

Sorry but I'm pretty sure that mind-altering 'brain weapons' are STILL only science fiction www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Would love to see if this has changed over the years!

The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute ...

70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Survey: What are the fastest-growing areas in neuroscience? Respondents pointed to computational neuroscience, systems neuroscience, neuroimmunology and neuroimaging, among other subfields.

What are the fastest-growing areas in neuroscience? Survey respondents pointed to computational neuroscience, systems neuroscience, neuroimmunology and neuroimaging, among other subfields.

www.thetransmitter.org/neuroscience...

#neuroskyence #StateOfNeuroscience

new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Experimental participants to us

A Piece of Space Junk Hit Their Ride Home. What Does This Mean for Space Exploration? Three Chinese astronauts will likely return safely to Earth after a reported space-junk strike. But the incident highlights the growing risk of orbital debris

🚨Three Chinese astronauts couldn’t return to Earth after space junk hit their spacecraft. Scientists warn this could be just the first of more accidents caused by orbital debris.

The situation is concerning. “There are a lot of people up there,” one source told me.

My story @sciam.bsky.social 🧪

Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting

I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:

Sure can. Thanks for passing it over, @carolynjackson.bsky.social :)

Psychedelics muddy fMRI results: Q&A with Adam Bauer and Jonah Padawer-Curry The drugs disrupt the link between vascular and neuronal activity, which complicates interpretations of fMRI data. Adopting a more holistic view of what constitutes brain activity may help…

Psychedelics disrupt the link between vascular and neuronal activity, which complicates interpretations of fMRI data. Adopting a more holistic view of what constitutes brain activity may help.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/psychedelics...

in my post-academic era i have become extremely scathing of the way academia considers papers to the primary outcome of intellectual work, and refuses to give credit to academics who write software or build other tooling. in industry we very rarely read your papers; but we always use your software

There is such a thing as 'settled science' — anyone who says otherwise is trying to manipulate you How bad-faith arguments sow doubt by weaponizing scientific humility.

“Science is never settled” sounds reasonable—but it’s often a rhetorical trick to undermine consensus on issues like vaccines or climate change.
Science evolves, but some things are overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
My latest for Live Science
www.livescience.com/...
1/10

AI chatbots fail at accurate news, major study reveals – DW – 10/22/2025 AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Copilot routinely distort the news and struggle to distinguish facts from opinion. That's according to a major new study from 22 international public broadcasters, incl...

Ouch.

AI chatbots fail at accurate news, major study reveals p.dw.com/p/528zp?maca...

"...four of the most commonly used AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time..."

Understanding brain-body interactions to advance brain health: A workshop. Transparent person, side profile.

Today and tomorrow 11a-3p EST, I'll be live posting this terrific workshop. It's open to all! So register at this link if you'd like to watch too (or follow this 🧵 for the highlights).

Agenda: 16 presentations + overviews, discussions, recaps and reviews.

www.nationalacademies.org/en/event/451...

mRNA Covid shots may boost the effects of certain cancer treatments, study suggests The potential reasons that a Covid vaccine would help treat cancer are intriguing.

mRNA Covid shots may boost the effects of certain cancer treatments, study www.statnews.com/2025/10/19/m...

"Patients who got Covid shots before starting cancer immunotherapy lived significantly longer."

Prelim & better data needed. But what will Republicans, antivaxxers, et al. do?

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Analyzing the academic trajectories of 78,216 psychology researchers, we demonstrate a persistent gender attrition gap, with women psychologists dropping out of academia at consistently higher rates than men psychologists.

Preprint: arxiv.org/pdf/2510.13273

Happening next week! This is exactly the type of high-level "meeting of the minds" we need to be having more of to advance brain health: scientists, policy makers and individuals with lived experience, talking across disciplines.

Workshop open to all (virtual).

This is really nice.

But at the same time it is sad that a separate journal for replications is needed. Replications are not a different kind of thing but instead a foundational aspect of normal run of the mill science biz. We should not reinforce the idea that they should be treated differently.

OK so I read through this study, and here are my conclusions:
- What a cool tech to examine epigenetic factors so closely!
- This is a small study
- This only differentiates severe-presenting patients from healthy controls; hasn't been used to diagnose ME/CFS *versus* other inflammatory illness. 🧪

Overconfidence can thrive even with detailed, continuous feedback | BPS A new study looks at overconfidence in chess players, and suggests that efforts to reduce it in everyday life via feedback can still fall flat.

Sometimes even a huge amount of feedback just doesn't make a dent in overconfidence — as demonstrated by this new study involving chess players: www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...

YouTube video by Simons Foundation Nicole Rust - The representation of mood in the primate insula (May 6, 2025)

Please spread the word! I am recruiting a PhD student this cycle (Fall 2026 start) to join my team in a new venture: the neuroscience of mood.

If you are curious to learn more, this short talk provides a good overview of why, what and how.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIK...

Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🧵 1/

20 bird species can understand each other’s anti-cuckoo call Several species of birds from different continents use and understand similar alarm calls when they see an invader that might lay an egg in their nest – this shared call hints at the origin of languag...

Really cool story - bird species from across the world make the same sound to warn against cuckoos, and they can even understand each other. Feeds into ideas Darwin had about the origin of language! www.newscientist.com/article/2498...

Image of Seren being filmed for her impact video wearing an FFP3 mask in the studio. Clinically Vulnerable Families logo

The UK Covid Inquiry will be looking at children and young people from today.

Watch @SkyNews at 7:30, CVF member Seren will be sharing her experiences ahead of her video to be shown at the inquiry.

Primary Cilia in the Developing and Mature Brain Primary cilia emerge as key regulators of development, neurogenesis, and signaling in the mammalian brain. Guemez-Gamboa et al. review the status, genetic basis, potential, controversies, and unanswer...

It continues to be weird to me that adult CNS neurons have a single, nonmotile cilium just hanging out, maybe acting as a site for receptor expression. Like a little extra antenna that we all just ignore in our drawings of neurons. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...