Digital Isolation, Social Connectedness, and Human Relationships: Insights from the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Abstract: The fast promotion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital communication technologies has reshaped how people communicate and establish relationships and feel social connectedness. Though online communication and AI present people with convenient engagement, the growing interdependence on technology has brought up worries about the issue of digital isolation and lonely experiences; as well as the quality of human relationships. This work examines the correlation between digital interaction, AI engagement, digital isolation, social connectedness, loneliness and relationship quality within the modern digital setting. The quantitative approach was employed, based on secondary data, where Python has been utilised to clean the data, perform descriptive and correlation analysis, visualisation, and a regression analysis. The results also show that digital interaction is weakly positively related to social connectedness, which can imply that online interaction can be used to support social relations. Nonetheless, online interaction also shows a positive correlation with online isolation, which suggests that regular online interaction does not necessarily result in adequate social interaction. There is a strong positive connection between digital isolation and loneliness, and social connectedness and a better quality of relations. The relationship between AI interaction and social connectedness is comparatively weakly positive, which implies that AI can potentially assist social interaction and dialogue, but is unable to substitute actual human social relationship. On balance, the paper finds that AI can enhance human connection as a complement of interpersonal communication, but overreliance can also pose risks of becoming more socially isolated and losing the personal connection with another human.