It is the early 1980s. Think Stranger Things (Duffer et al., 2016-2025). My family just finished dinner and my dad and I are sitting next to each other on the living room floor in front of our TRS-80. We played other games, but this time on the monochrome screen are two rectangular paddles, a square of white light bouncing back and forth, and a tally of times each of us failed to hit the square with our virtual paddle.

This interaction seems minimal from a distance. Nothing much is happening, yet it represents some of the most connected time I experienced with my dad. We did not have to face each other, and there was no pressure to talk as long as we kept moving our paddles to block the bouncing white square. We did talk though. We talked about the game. We talked about the future of computers. We talked about my classes and my future. We connected as father and son.

That experience is not unique to me. Friends and families have connected through books, radio, movies, television, and now social media and smart devices. Media has always done this: offered people a container; a shared object of attention and conversation that made being together easier and made human connections stronger. It is no accident that the researchers who study these phenomena, the members of this division, have spent careers documenting not just how media impacts individuals, but how it shapes our relationships.

My dad passed away while I was in graduate school and I still think about those evenings with him in front of the screen. He gave me a deep appreciation for many things; among them a conviction that being together is meaningful and that technology can help facilitate human relationships.

That conviction led me to build AllPsych.com in the early days of the web, one of the first online psychology education platforms. And through the internet, and my speedy 14.4 kbps modem, I met my spouse years before online dating was commonplace. For my entire life, I saw technology as a facilitator of relationships.

From Facilitator to Participant

Lately I have been thinking about how profoundly this has changed.

Media and technology have always served as a container; a medium through which humans connected. The members of this division have both lived that story and studied it: how media shapes experience, how shared screens create shared meaning, how parasocial bonds fulfill psychological needs, and how psychologists can use media to improve the human condition.

But something has now shifted in kind, not just degree. Technology is no longer just a facilitator of human connection, it is becoming a participant. Millions of people now maintain ongoing relationships with AI companions, often claiming AI is their closest relationship and even describing them as romantic. And for some, these relationships seem to be helping (Nakagomi et al., 2026). At a moment when human loneliness has reached epidemic proportions (WHO, 2025), when people report having fewer close relationships than any generation before them, an AI companion that listens without judgment, remembers what you said last week, and asks how you are doing might feel like a lifeline. Is AI part of the loneliness epidemic, or is it part of the solution?

Human relationships are hard. They require patience, reciprocity, and a tolerance for imperfection. Increasingly, we are turning to AI because it does not demand much of us and at the same time feels like it understands us and is compassionate and helpful, especially in moments of distress when support is needed most (Rousmaniere, 2025). If AI companionship becomes the path of least resistance for meeting our relational needs, what happens to our capacity for the harder, richer, more demanding connections that human relationships require?

We are also approaching a moment where the question of what is real becomes genuinely difficult to answer. With capabilities of AI audio and video accelerating rapidly, the perceptual cues we have always relied on to distinguish a human from a simulation are becoming unreliable. For millions of users, these artificial relationships already feel very real, and this trend is expanding rapidly.

What I Bring to These Questions

I am a clinical psychologist whose doctoral research on malingering sparked an ongoing interest in understanding genuine and performative interactions. In my early career I helped forensic defendants learn interpersonal skills to better communicate with their attorneys. As a professor, I teach doctoral students how to build therapeutic relationships with clients, how to build supervisory relationships with trainees, and how to build consultancy relationships outside of our field. All of these require skills like active listening and open questions, and the perception of unconditional regard and genuine curiosity.

Lately I have been thinking that these are, essentially, the skills we are now teaching computers. The field of affective computing, pioneered by MIT’s Rosalind Picard, has spent decades developing systems that can recognize, interpret, and respond to human emotional states (Picard, 1997). In essence, I teach these skills to students, and AI researchers teach them to computers.

The Questions We Need to Be Asking

As President-Elect of Division 46, I am stepping into this role at an inflection point and with far more questions than answers. I have a genuine desire to connect with as many of you as possible—in person at the APA Convention in D.C. this August, and through whatever technologically facilitated means bring us together in the future. Along with a dynamic program focused on media and technology, I will be hosting a panel and Q&A on artificial relationships and intimacy, bringing together researchers and practitioners navigating these questions in real time. It is a conversation this division is uniquely equipped to lead.

The questions I most want to explore go to the heart of our work. What makes our artificial relationships feel real? The emerging evidence suggests that for many people the comfort and sense of being known is genuine even when what is on the other side may not be (Skjuve et al., 2021). Do artificial relationships help us overcome ill-being and build well-being? The research is mixed, with positive benefits such as decreased loneliness (Nakagomi et al., 2026) countering concerns about media dependency and social withdrawal (Malfacini, 2025).

And perhaps most importantly, how do artificial relationships affect our human ones? Do they enhance them, as technology enhanced my relationship with my father and created the conditions to meet my spouse? Or do they replace them, leaving people with less human connection and less tolerance for the patience and grace that real relationships require?

My dad and I played simple games like Pong for hours because a screen gave us a place to be together. Technology has moved us toward each other in ways we did not always anticipate. The question now is whether we will move forward intentionally, using what we know as psychologists to help technology do less harm and do more good, or whether we will passively ride along and study what happens next. I know which I prefer. I hope you will join me in this conversation.

References

Duffer, M., Duffer, R., Levy, S., Cohen, D., Holland, C., Wright, B., Thunell, M., Gajdusek, K., & Paterson, I. (Executive Producers). (2016–2025). Stranger things [TV series]. 21 Laps Entertainment; Monkey Massacre; Netflix.

Malfacini, K. (2025). The impacts of companion AI on human relationships: Risks, benefits, and design considerations. AI & Society, 40(7), 5527–5540. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02318-6

Nakagomi, A., Akutsu, Y., Yasuoka, M., Abe, N., Ihara, S., Teroh, T., & Tabuchi, T. (2026). AI companions and subjective well-being: Moderation by social connectedness and loneliness. Technology in Society, 84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2026.103229

Picard, R. W. (1997). Affective computing. MIT Press.

Rousmaniere, T. (2025). Digital empathy: Can AI fulfill Roger’s Three Essential Therapeutic Conditions? Retrieved from https://medium.com/@aiandmentalhealth/digital-empathy-can-ai-fulfill-rogers-three-essential-therapeutic-conditions-b33ca145bb05.

Skjuve, M., Følstad, A., Fostervold, K. I., & Brandtzaeg, P. B. (2021). My chatbot companion – A study of human-chatbot relationships. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 149, Article 102601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102601

Wiederhold, B. K. (2024). The rise of AI companions and the quest for authentic connection. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2024.0309

World Health Organization [WHO] (2025). From loneliness to social connection – charting a path to healthier societies: report of the WHO Commission on Social Connection.