AI users in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan usually tend to suffer from lonely insomnia, study finds
“The rapid development of artificial intelligence systems is triggering a new industrial revolution that is transforming the workplace, bringing with it many benefits but also some unexplored risks, including potentially harmful effects on workers’ mental and physical health,” said Pok Man Tang, assistant professor of management on the university Georgia.
Tang and colleagues conducted an experiment with 166 engineers from a Taiwanese biomedical company who were surveyed for 3 weeks about “feelings of loneliness, attachment anxiety, and sense of belonging.”
“Employees who interacted more with AI systems were more likely to experience loneliness, insomnia, and increased alcohol consumption after work, but they also showed some helpful behaviors toward co-workers,” they found.
A survey of 126 consultants at an Indonesian property management company found much the identical, apart from a link between the frequency of AI use and post-work alcohol consumption, researchers say. They added that a web-based experiment with 214 working adults within the U.S. and one other with 294 employees at Malaysian tech firms showed similar results.
The only advantage they found is that folks who use AI often may prove more helpful to colleagues because their loneliness creates an “increased need for belonging.”
“Humans are social animals, and isolating work with AI systems can have harmful side effects on employees’ personal lives,” Tang said.
The research, which Tang conducted with colleagues from the National University of Singapore, Britain’s Cardiff University, National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, Texas A&M University within the US and Nanyang Business School in Singapore, was published on Monday within the Journal of Applied Psychology. .
