AI Companionship or Loneliness: How AI-Based Chatbots Impact Consumer’s (Digital) Well-Being: An Abstract

With the recent proliferation of “smart” technologies, consumers increasingly interact with these technologies the same way they would interact with their fellow humans (e.g., having a conversation with Siri or Alexa) (Novak and Hoffman 2019). Indeed, some consumers are turning to technology to fulfill desires for friendship and/or romance (Olson 2020). While technology can be successfully designed to positively influence consumer well-being (Dekker et al. 2020; Peters et al. 2018), scant research exists examining this phenomenon beyond a conceptual level. Recently, however, scholars show that the detrimental impact of technology on consumer well-being (i.e., consisting of overall life satisfaction and positive and negative affective states; Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002) may be less harmful than previously thought (Orben and Pryzbylski 2018; Pryzbylski and Weinstein 2016). In contrast, other research shows that the detrimental effect of technology may exist under certain conditions, such as long-term isolation (e.g., Lastovicka and Sirianni 2011). Therefore, technology can have beneficial and/or detrimental impacts on consumer well-being (Hefner and Vorderer 2017; Mick and Fournier 1998; Pryzbylski et al. 2012). Understanding the relationship between technology and consumer well-being is further marred by data collection issues such as research participants being unable to accurately estimate their own technology usage (Scharkow 2016). As such, the purpose of this research was to develop a deeper understanding of how technology and the interaction with technology can impact consumer well-being. Specifically, we develop theory regarding how consumer’s interact with technology via two qualitative studies following a grounded theory approach (Corbin and Strauss 1990). Because our data are cross-sectional, future research would benefit from a longitudinal perspective to assess when technology might improve (digital) well-being (e.g., potentially initially) and where technology might worsen (digital) well-being overtime due to increased isolation (e.g., if used for a long period) (Lastovicka and Sirianni 2011).