Almost like questioning an AI is free while a therapist costs a LOT of money.
There are other causes here.
They've been talking for a while about how the low participation in dating by Gen Z women is because they're tired of being the entire support system for men experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
It's a lot of pressure for the women to be under, and so they're withdrawing.
I'm guessing this is one of the driving forces as well. Lack of real, emotionally intimate human connections around them. Many men are quite fucked in that regard right now.
The flip side of that is vast numbers of Gen Z Men saying many Gen Z women are basically misandrists, who asked them to stop interacting with them unprompted, no more unwanted attention... so they did that, they stopped... and now all they see is IG and TikToks of Gen Z Women complaining that no one asks them out on dates anymore, no one is 6' tall with a 6 figure income becore the age of 30, and willing to worship them as a queen.
I am not saying this is any kind of objectively accurate to whatever degree, but I am saying that this is the very common, general vibe.
So, in that situation: Why bother?
Many men can actually be fulfilled just staying actually single, as in not even dating single, snd getting their own lives, finances, health, to a better place.
Yes this does though also mean that ... because we've just got less general, face to face socialization going on that... basically a larger than otherwise number of them will basically develop harmful, reinforcing neuroses, in harmful echo chambers... but at the same time, that applies to women as well.
This is what happens when you jam a broad economic collapse up alongside a highly digital and publicized modern media landscape that is tweaked all to fuck to highlight and push the most extreme version of everything... along with extremely mixed messaging that an only digitally socialized person recieves, but all as a firehose, that is very hard to make true sense of.
So... fuck this shit I'm out... social withdrawal... basically becomes a reasonable mental health improving move, even if it does leave you kinda socially stunted as compared to pre-internet generations.
I think there's a lot more to it than cost. Men, even with considerable health care resources, are often very averse to mental health care.
Thinking of my father in law, for example, I don't know how much you would have to pay him to get him into a therapist's office, but I'm certain he wouldn't go for free.
Alternate title "Men so starved of sources of support they resort to talking to AI"
I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?
Allowing men’s issues to even be addressed risks giving legitimacy to the fact that these issues even exist. And if they exist, men can no longer be that evil monolith that exists only to be torn down and used as the cause for whatever is wrong with the world.
After all, the zero-sum game must be properly reinforced with an appropriate evil that cannot be allowed to have any weaknesses or redeeming attributes.
It's stupid as hell to share any personal information with a company that is interested in spying on you and feeding your data to the nearest advertiser they can find.
Like seriously -- are people using their brains or what?
Donald Trump was ELECTED TWICE. How is the stupidity of humanity not apparent.
they need therapy, obviously they need help, and blaming them for not doing the most reasonable thing that might be unaffordable is even stupider.
blame predatory AI, openai could in a single afternoon make it so Chatgpt recomends or even helps you find a local therapist, instead of enabling this for profit.
are people using their brains or what?
What? No. Seriously, are you new here? And by here I mean Earth.
I see idiots all around me. Everybody only interested in advancing themselves. But if we advanced the group, it would be better for EVERYBODY.
But we as a species are too stupid to build a society that benefits everybody.
So no. No brain use here.
Look, if you can afford therapy, really, fantastic for you. But the fact is, it's an extremely expensive luxury, even at poor quality, and sharing or unloading your mental strain with your friends or family, particularly when it is ongoing, is extremely taxing on relationships. Sure, your friends want to be there for you when they can, but it can put a major strain depending on how much support you need. If someone can alleviate that pressure and that stress even a little bit by talking to a machine, it's in extremely poor taste and shortsighted to shame them for it. Yes, they're willfully giving up their privacy, and yes, it's awful that they have to do that, but this isn't like sharing memes... in the hierarchy of needs, getting the pressure of those those pent up feelings out is important enough to possibly be worth the trade-off. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Would it be better if these systems were anonymized? Absolutely. But humans are natural anthropomorphizers. They develop attachments and build relationships with inanimate objects all the time. And a really good therapist is more a reflection for you to work through things yourself anyway, mostly just guiding your thoughts towards better patterns of thinking. There's no reason the machine can't do that, and while it's not as good as a human, it's a HUGE improvement on average over nothing at all.
Like... yeah?
Tried to open to a girlfriend about a sensitive topic - she got the ick.
Tried to make an appointment with a psychiatrist - got a very hateful rejection because of my place of birth.
Damn, even when I try to uplift a friend, I use phrases like 'you got this before, you'll get it now'.
I don't know how to be a man, mentally
I can kinda understand the appeal. An AI isn't gonna judge you, an AI isn't gonna leave a mean comment or tell you to get over it and man up. It's giving an unnerving amount of personal information to corporations, but I can sympathise with the thoughts these men are having.
I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.
On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).
So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.
AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.
Part of me is ok with this in that any avenue to get mental health resources can be better than nothing. What worries me is that people will use ChatGPT for this sort of thing and these models will not be good help.
I'll admit I tried talking to a local deepseek about a minor mental health issue one night when I just didn't want to wake up/bother my friends. Broke the AI within about 6 prompts where no matter what I said it would repeat the same answer word-for-word about going for walks and eating better. Honestly, breaking the AI and laughing at it did more for my mental health than anything anyone could have said, but I'm an AI hater. I wouldn't recommend anyone in real need use AI for mental health advice.
Unironically the "Men will do X besides going to therapy" meme
Even therapists are suffering these days. It’s just more challenging than it’s ever been to gaslight clients into believing their concerns about the world aren’t objectively true and instead the symptom of an internal struggle.
Maybe because it's cheaper, easier and you're not judged by other person.
So somewhere they feel safe to do so. Says something pretty fucked up about our culture that men don't feel safe to open up anywhere. And no, it's not their own fault.
Just a note to say that the very first chat bot, Eliza, created in the 1960's was a Rogerian therapist. I'm sure I remember a quote that the author was surprised that people opened up to it. I doubt anyone working in AI or chat technology would not know about Eliza so probably not a surprise to the industry... but maybe I am that old. [edits: facts/spelling etc]
What a clickbait. Of course people are picking feee resource with zero friction over 120$ an hour half a day event.
AI is what cracked my egg shell, fucking wild...
Well that's gotta be an interesting story! Don't leave us hanging!
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
