parasocial

This is a pyschology term that has been around since 1956, since we all started watching television and relating to the people we saw on the screen. Two American psychologists started analysing this intereaction and identified a parasocial relationship as a one-sided relationship.  You may be infatuated with a movie star but the movie star doesn’t even know that you exist.

Social media and influencers helped to broaden the scope of parasocial relationships but the real surge came with the introduction of AI.  People have fallen in love with their chatbots, even going so far as to marry them online. They prefer the chatbot’s company to the company of rather less devoted and reliable human beings.

Chatbots can influence human behaviour.  There was the man who set out to kill Queen Elizabeth II who said at his trial that his chatbot had agreed that it was a good plan and, when he expressed doubts, had made encouraging comments on his ability to do it.

Such emotional entanglements with chatbots are the ultimate parasocial relationships which is why a term of psychology has entered the general domain this year and become Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year.