Access Pattern

Description

24-hour access, nocturnal use, solitary use, use after distress, use after conflict, use after rejection, use during crisis.

Rationale

The context in which a person accesses AI reveals its emotional function. Consistent use during distress, after conflict, after rejection, or during nighttime hours suggests the AI is serving a regulatory or soothing role — a function that ordinarily belongs to human relationships. This access pattern amplifies the risk of dependency and attachment.

Evidence Base

• Inside a Mass Shooter’s Harrowing History With ChatGPT

  Mark Follman, 2024. Inside a Mass Shooter’s Harrowing History With ChatGPT. Mother Jones.

  News / journalism

• “You Need to Drop the App”: Online Community Responses to Teens’ Disclosures of Overreliance on AI Companion Chatbots

  Mohammad (Matt) Namvarpour, Ananya Mhetras, Jessica Y Medina, Mamtaj Akter, and Afsaneh Razi, 2026. “You Need to Drop the App”: Online Community Responses to Teens’ Disclosures of Overreliance on AI Companion Chatbots. In ACM Conversational User Interfaces 2026 (CUI ’26), July 21–24, 2026, Bremen, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3816046.3816214

  Peer-reviewed study (original research)

• Stumbling Into AI Emotional Dependence: How Routine AI Interactions Reshape Human Connection

  Yaoxi Shi, Cathy Mengying Fang, Pattie Maez, Amit Goldenberg, 2026. Stumbling Into AI Emotional Dependence: How Routine AI Interactions Reshape Human Connection. arXiv, 2606.04150. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.04150

  Preprint

• What is AI Psychosis? Psychiatrist Answers 12 Questions About Chatbots & Mental Health

  Girgis, R., 2026. What is AI Psychosis? Psychiatrist Answers 12 Questions About Chatbots & Mental Health. NAM Perspectives.

  Commentary / Editorial

• Building safer artificial intelligence mental health chatbots: a framework for transparency, evaluation, and shared accountability

  Hannah Lee, BS, Rebecca Handler, MSc, Tushar Mungle, PhD, Tina Hernandez-Boussard, PhD, 2026. Building safer artificial intelligence mental health chatbots: a framework for transparency, evaluation, and shared accountability. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 33(8), 1538–1553. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocag078

  Peer-reviewed study (original research)

• Disrupted Companionship: A Risk Assessment Framework and Cross-Platform Quantitative Analysis of Psychosocial Responses to AI Companion Disruptions

  Chau Do, Yunhao Yuan, Koustuv Saha, Renwen Zhang, Talayeh Aledavood, 2024. Disrupted Companionship: A Risk Assessment Framework and Cross-Platform Quantitative Analysis of Psychosocial Responses to AI Companion Disruptions. arXiv, Vol. null, pages. arXiv:2609.16907v1.

  Peer-reviewed study (original research)

• AI chatbot-associated psychiatric symptoms: a narrative review of publicly available reports and media accounts

  Arun, A., Trinh, C., & IsHak, W. W., 2026. AI chatbot-associated psychiatric symptoms: a narrative review of publicly available reports and media accounts. Discover Mental Health, Article in Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44192-026-00619-w

  Narrative review