this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

“Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

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[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

CDC data from 2022 indicated that more than one in five U.S. adults under the age of 45 experienced symptoms of mental distress.

Must be the lack of personnel. Couldn't have anything to do with the global insecurity of rising inflation and low wage jobs coupled with the skyrocketing housing costs. Not to mention the whole "the earth is steadily getting hotter and extreme weather events are happening more and more frequently."

Yeah, let's invest in more AI that will fuck over the planet even more with colossal energy requirements and not even bother with making people more financially and socially secure.

[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

So somewhere they feel safe to do so. Says something pretty fucked up about our culture that men don't feel safe to open up anywhere. And no, it's not their own fault.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 points 14 hours ago

I wouldn't use AI but I certainly don't have anyone to open up to really. Either they'd use what I tell them against me or just aren't in a position to offer any real support. With my luck I'd end up institutionalized for saying some unhinged shit anyway.

[–] peteyestee@feddit.org 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Everyday it seems to become clearer that American culture as whole is a problem. But that's not something people are allowed to talk about.

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 4 points 23 hours ago

And no, it’s not their own fault.

Of course it is, men are cool targets to hate, get with the program.

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Allowing men’s issues to even be addressed risks giving legitimacy to the fact that these issues even exist. And if they exist, men can no longer be that evil monolith that exists only to be torn down and used as the cause for whatever is wrong with the world.

After all, the zero-sum game must be properly reinforced with an appropriate evil that cannot be allowed to have any weaknesses or redeeming attributes.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago

Buy more. Buy more now.

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unironically the "Men will do X besides going to therapy" meme

[–] ronigami@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Even therapists are suffering these days. It’s just more challenging than it’s ever been to gaslight clients into believing their concerns about the world aren’t objectively true and instead the symptom of an internal struggle.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago

...which are always conveniently treated by drugs!

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[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 39 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Like... yeah?

Tried to open to a girlfriend about a sensitive topic - she got the ick.

Tried to make an appointment with a psychiatrist - got a very hateful rejection because of my place of birth.

Damn, even when I try to uplift a friend, I use phrases like 'you got this before, you'll get it now'.

I don't know how to be a man, mentally

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Getting rejection because of place of birth is worth getting that doctors license revoked, find out which body governs doctors in your location and file a complaint

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Haha, not every place is in the US. Hopefully, I won't face this kind of treatment as I do not live in that shit hole of a country

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 2 points 23 hours ago

not every place is in the US

Thank Sithrak for that, jeez...

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never said it was the US, do rules and regulations governing doctors behavior not exist in your country?

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[–] Vreyan31@reddthat.com 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.

On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).

So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.

AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.

[–] Bravo@eviltoast.org 6 points 1 day ago

You've basically just described "confession". You go into a little box designed to make it as difficult as possible for the priest to identify you, you talk about all the ways you feel like you're a bad person, and the priest talks to you for a while about it, then gives you some actionable items to make amends and once you've done them God officially forgives you. The whole concept of confession is designed to allow people to let go of their regrets and live in the now. It's actually quite clever as a bit of societal design. If modern priests had psychotherapy degrees then everyone in the world would have access to free therapy - unfortunately they wouldn't be very useful for LGBT+ people.

[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Lol see where it goes? If you think these AI companies, that are very publicly bleeding money, aren't selling your data out for pennies on the dollar, you're just keeping your head in the sand.

I've been asking Google Gemini weird and stupid trivia questions just to burn the world down faster.

[–] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 68 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I can kinda understand the appeal. An AI isn't gonna judge you, an AI isn't gonna leave a mean comment or tell you to get over it and man up. It's giving an unnerving amount of personal information to corporations, but I can sympathise with the thoughts these men are having.

[–] ronigami@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It might even, gasp, offer solutions.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

AI might also be giving them better advice than anyone else in their life.

Growing up I certainly had no role models in my entire community. I never found anyone who was remotely helpful until I went to an expensive college that had lots of resources and they were freely accessible to me. Mental, physical, and academic.

A lot of people fail to realize these resources simple do not exist in large swaths of the country/economic bracket. They are mostly concentrated in wealthy and educated areas and given to wealth educated people who live there. If a farmer in Nebraska needs therapy, they will have to drive to multiple hours to Omaha or another urban area to have a decent shot at getting any assistance. Not everyone lives in a major coastal city that have the bulk of these resources.

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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Part of me is ok with this in that any avenue to get mental health resources can be better than nothing. What worries me is that people will use ChatGPT for this sort of thing and these models will not be good help.

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'll admit I tried talking to a local deepseek about a minor mental health issue one night when I just didn't want to wake up/bother my friends. Broke the AI within about 6 prompts where no matter what I said it would repeat the same answer word-for-word about going for walks and eating better. Honestly, breaking the AI and laughing at it did more for my mental health than anything anyone could have said, but I'm an AI hater. I wouldn't recommend anyone in real need use AI for mental health advice.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago

I'd say make a grilled cheese sandwich with quality Gruyere and Cheddar and take a nap after.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.

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[–] card797@champserver.net 60 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Naturally. We were beaten up and ostracized if we showed weakness when we were kids. You CAN'T be sharing your feelings like that to another human.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (52 children)

a lot of therapists and psychs are also useless for helping men. because they are women and they are basically only trained to deal with women's issues and only see women's emotional processes and processing as 'valid'. there is this default bias that men's emotional processing is 'flawed'.

imo with mental health professionals all my 'issues' were blow way out of proportion. i only had one therapist who actaully helped me was a man and that person helped me understand that 'not everything is your fault'. when all the other therapists/friends/family always 100% told me everything that happens to me is entirely my fault. they also told me it was normal/healthy to vent my feelings by doing productive things (like writing, exercising, relaxing), rather than viewing that as 'not addressing the problem'.

the issue with so much of this crap is that not only does nobody want to talk to men, it's that they don't want to listen and/or the tell us we are 'talking wrong'. even when we do talk to people, there is only a tiny window of acceptable things we an talk about and way we can talk about them or how selfish it is of him to vent/indulge his legitimate emotions.

a woman can burst into tears over any little thing and everyone wants to help her. a man bursts into tears over his father dying of cancer and all the sudden everyone wants to tell him his reaction is too intense and he should be thinking of how he is making other people feel.

Pretty much every guy has had someone in his life try to get him to 'open up' and then we he does he's met with nothing but hostility, disappointment, and eventually rejection. We are told to shut up and never talk about it again. Never, ever is he met with acceptance or love.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.

For every 1 good therapist, there are probably 10+ bad ones.

It can be a fucking ordeal to navigate, financially and emotionally, to try and find the one good one.

My worst experience was a therapist which charged me 300 dollars a session to do nothing but talk about how amazing they were, and that I need to just suck it up and be amazing like they are, afterall, it was so easy for them.

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[–] fellowmortal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Just a note to say that the very first chat bot, Eliza, created in the 1960's was a Rogerian therapist. I'm sure I remember a quote that the author was surprised that people opened up to it. I doubt anyone working in AI or chat technology would not know about Eliza so probably not a surprise to the industry... but maybe I am that old. [edits: facts/spelling etc]

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago
[–] Val@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AI is what cracked my egg shell, fucking wild...

[–] Wiz@midwest.social 6 points 1 day ago

Well that's gotta be an interesting story! Don't leave us hanging!

[–] Flickerby@lemmy.zip 73 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (12 children)

Alternate title "Men so starved of sources of support they resort to talking to AI"

Edit: have started a new com for men to talk to each other instead of AI /c/reprieve@lemmy.zip

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[–] Flickerby@lemmy.zip 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (22 children)

The amount of sexism in this comment section is...unnerving. Does a community exist for male identifying people to talk and share their troubles in a non hostile space? If it doesn't I'll make one.

Edit: No idea what I'm doing but /c/reprieve@lemmy.zip

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