{"id":1776,"date":"2026-08-03T10:11:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2026-08-03T10:11:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:11:57","slug":"how-ai-could-make-people-more-anxious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1776","title":{"rendered":"How AI Could Make People More Anxious"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Pocket Casts<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing sucks you in quite like the internet. It seems to have a way of figuring out what you\u2019re currently obsessed with and serving you more and more of it, whether that\u2019s cat videos, cookie recipes, or information about your most pervasive and seemingly unshakeable anxiety. (At this point, anyone who\u2019s never spent a late night Googling their worries should be studied by science for their willpower.) But with the rise of artificial intelligence, the internet may be fueling a different kind of engagement.<\/p>\n

Read more The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta<\/a><\/p>\n

Elias Aboujaoude, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and Ashleigh Golden, a psychologist at Stanford, recently wrote a paper arguing that the design of AI chatbots appears to encourage anxious behavior and keep people stuck in obsessive loops. One in six adults have turned to chatbots for mental-health information and advice, according to a KFF poll, and Golden cautions that \u201cwe may be encountering the perfect storm of avoidant coping behaviors and this tech that reinforces those tendencies and disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this episode of How to Touch Grass<\/em>, hosts Julie Beck and Natalie Brennan hear from Golden and Aboujaoude about how people who use AI looking for reassurance may instead find their symptoms getting worse, and what that means for an anxious nation.<\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Julie Beck:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know about you, but often when when I feel anxious, one of the first things I do is pick up my phone.<\/p>\n

Natalie Brennan:<\/strong> And that is probably the biggest way that I have lost hours of my life. I really never feel better after, but I continue to do the same thing.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> I mean, it is occasionally useful, right? Like, if my cats eat something weird and I\u2019m feeling anxious about, like Was it poison?<\/em>\u2014and I Google it, and I find out no, that thing is not poisonous to cats.<\/p>\n

Brennan: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n

Beck: <\/strong>That was helpful.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> But it can be a very slippery slope. Because so quickly then it can turn into\u2026<\/p>\n

How much hair is normal to lose every day? What does 100 strands of hair look like? If I hung out with someone who has norovirus before they got sick, am I still at risk of getting sick? When will I get sick? <\/em><\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> For me, it\u2019s extreme weather.<\/p>\n

Is there a blizzard? Is it getting closer? Is it changing? Is it still gonna get here?<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not help. Like, the weather is gonna weather, whether I look at it or not.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> I\u2019m Julie Beck, a staff writer at The Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> And I\u2019m Natalie Brennan, a producer at The Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> This is How to Touch Grass<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Beck: <\/strong>Natalie, according to the World Health Organization, anxiety is the most common mental-health disorder. And even if we\u2019re not talking about clinical anxiety, many people report feeling anxious these days.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Mm.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Forty-eight percent of American adults said they felt more anxious this year, in 2026, than they did last year.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> I guess I\u2019m not surprised to hear that people are feeling very anxious, but almost half saying they\u2019re more anxious this year than last year does feel striking.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> The thing that\u2019s changing lately, though, is for a lot of people\u2014that instinct to pick up your phone and Google when you\u2019re anxious is morphing into an instinct to ask AI.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Elias Aboujaoude:<\/strong> Individuals now go to chatbots for well-being purposes. So overnight, these systems have become a go-to psychological provider, essentially.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Beck:<\/strong> That\u2019s Elias Aboujaoude. Elias is a psychiatrist who heads the Anxiety Disorders Section and the OCD Clinic at Stanford University. His colleague Ashleigh Golden is a psychologist and professor at Stanford.<\/p>\n

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Ashleigh Golden:<\/strong> We may be encountering what you might call the perfect storm of avoidant coping behaviors, and this tech that reinforces those tendencies and disorders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Beck:<\/strong> The two of them have worked in clinical practices and have also consulted for Silicon Valley tech companies. Elias and Ash recently co-authored a paper arguing that many AI chatbots are designed in ways that can feed OCD and anxiety and make them worse.<\/p>\n

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Aboujaoude:<\/strong> If you have an anxiety disorder already, then you are at risk of seeing that disorder exacerbated by some of these platforms. But we\u2019re also starting to encounter in our clinical practice individuals who were never diagnosed with anxiety, who are presenting essentially with de novo anxiety that seems to be directly related to them discovering these new platforms and starting to interact with them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Beck:<\/strong> That seems like a really big deal\u2014that people who aren\u2019t actually clinically anxious could start to exhibit more and more anxious behaviors, and tendencies, as they use this technology.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> I actually want to start a little ways in the past. It\u2019s now extremely normal today that if somebody has a concern, a worry, a question, the first and sometimes the only place that they go is the internet. But that doesn\u2019t just mean Google anymore. Is this shift into the AI-chatbot era that\u2019s underway now significantly different than the technological shifts of the past?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> I mean, to me, Google looks roughly the same now in 2026 as it did in 2010. But chatbots are evolving, I was gonna say, on a quarterly basis. It\u2019s faster than that.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> It\u2019s been a huge shift.<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> So, I mean, 12 months from now, the interface may not be text in a browser. It may be voice, video, ambient AI in your earbuds and your glasses. And I think that immersive, more intimate relational feel makes it even more powerful.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re increasingly seeing chatbots being embedded into everything\u2014so like emails, browsers, OSs, work software, mandated at work. So if someone decides they wanna step back from chatbot use, they may keep encountering LLM-mediated interactions in daily life, because tech is becoming part of that infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> So now we\u2019ve arrived in this new era of generative AI. So we\u2019re undergoing another big shift in how people seek out information. Like, say I have, you know, a stomachache, and I\u2019m worried. And I start Googling what might be wrong with me. I might start off on WebMD. I might go to some other websites, and there might be some reasonable suggestions in there. But there\u2019s gonna be so many possibilities that eventually, personally, I will probably spiral and end up thinking I have cancer. Can you describe what would be different about that experience if I used an AI chatbot to search instead?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> If someone is worried about a symptom, like in the Google era\u2014they might have typed the symptom in, gotten a list of links, clicked one, clicked another. It felt impersonal, and there wasn\u2019t a follow-up. And eventually you kind of read all the WebMD pages that you can. You get tired. Yeah. The loop has natural friction built in. You close the laptop: the end for that session.<\/p>\n

When I think about large language models or general-purpose AI, it, it\u2019s more like talking to someone. So it gives you a synthesis that feels personal, written for you in plain language with confidence. Yeah, and many of the replies end with an invitation to continue to engage. So like: \u201cDo you want me to look into related conditions? Or should I make you a checklist?\u201d Et cetera. So there\u2019s no natural end point.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Like how would you describe the tone that they use when they\u2019re talking to you?<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> They come across as your best friend. But they\u2019re not only your best friend\u2014they\u2019re your best friend who happens to be very intelligent. And it makes the information they give you land differently, right? You\u2019re much more likely to accept it, to incorporate it, to go with it, to trust it. It\u2019s gonna sound evidence-based. It\u2019s gonna be at your fingertips at any point of day or night, and it\u2019s gonna be delivered in a very agreeable, validating, sycophantic way. So it\u2019s very engaging, and this is gonna cause your anxiety to immediately decrease from 10 to zero, essentially.<\/p>\n

And this mechanism is very reinforcing. Next time you\u2019re gonna be feeling anxious about your health or maybe some other trigger, you\u2019re gonna want this kind of reassurance, and the only place you\u2019re gonna find it is the chatbot.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Although in some ways, you know, calming yourself when you\u2019re anxious seems like a good thing to try to do. So explain why this is different, or why this is bad.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> So this really goes against what a therapist would want you to do to learn how to deal with these worst-case-scenario outcomes that preoccupy you when you\u2019re anxious. So this prevents the corrective learning that happens if you were engaged in therapy to counter this anxiety.<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> It may look like coping, superficially. Let\u2019s say I have social anxiety. I\u2019m worried about what people think about me, and whether they think I\u2019m making mistakes in conversation. Like asking a friend, \u201cHey, uh, did\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> \u201cWas I weird?\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden<\/strong>: \u201cWas I weird?\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> \u201cWas that weird?\u201d \u201cDo I sound weird?\u201d Like, \u201cDid that sound stupid?\u201d \u201cDoes everybody hate me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> Yeah. Exactly. And so when I ask that of a chatbot, and it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, no\u201d\u2014like, \u201cThat was fine.\u201d Or \u201cYou came across okay,\u201d that gives me temporary relief. So my anxiety goes down, right? If I\u2019m doing that, yeah, multiple times, and that becomes habitual, and I\u2019m getting this reassurance that brings my anxiety down? What I\u2019m learning is I can\u2019t sit with that anxious uncertainty, and I do need to engage in these avoidant coping behaviors. And I never get to learn that I can sit with that not knowing, without engaging in compulsions, and I\u2019m more likely to do them more often with the AI and become more dependent on it for that decrease in anxiety.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> And does the relief that it gives you\u2014does that last, or is it fleeting?<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> I mean, that\u2019s the thing. The relief is fleeting.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Mm.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude<\/strong>: And next time you feel anxious, your natural reaction is to want to feel this dramatic sense of relief, which takes you right back to the chatbot. When if you were working with a therapist on your anxiety, the therapist would help you experience the fact that anxiety naturally dissipates. Anxiety has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The therapist would teach you that these feared outcomes, these feared worst-case scenarios don\u2019t tend to happen. And are statistically very unlikely. The therapist would teach you that there\u2019s no such thing as 100 percent, you know, guarantees in life.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty is built into the human condition, and it\u2019s something that we should accept and make peace with. Really, intolerance of uncertainty is an issue that cuts across all these seemingly distinct disorders. OCD, generalized anxiety disorder. You have social-anxiety disorder, and this is very much, I think\u2014and our paper argues what chatbots really sort of work on, in unproductive ways.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> We\u2019ve been talking a lot about working with a therapist; clinical anxiety. But we all feel anxious sometimes. We all might seek reassurance sometimes. How relevant is everything we\u2019ve been talking about to people who don\u2019t have clinical anxiety?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> We\u2019re hearing more and more from psychologists and psychiatrists and other mental-health practitioners that folks who may not have been spending so much time engaging in reassurance-seeking or perfecting or other compulsive behaviors might be engaging in more. To the point where these might be becoming new compulsions, and perhaps pushing them potentially over the threshold from subclinical to clinical.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> Our experience with social media is very informative here. Because I would say some of the reassurance-seeking, some of the intolerance of uncertainty that was already maybe playing out in those sort of primordial, you know, platforms is completely disinhibited now in the age of chatbots. So it\u2019s not a big stretch to expect something similar to unfold. This is something that is being borne out clinically already, although keeping in mind that the pace of research is much slower than the pace at which these technologies evolve. So we don\u2019t have time to waste, really.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> You know, Julie, I have obsessions and compulsions that fit under this OCD umbrella. And so I really relate to this desire for reassurance-seeking, you know, that I think most people experience from time to time. But I can experience it a lot. And there was this one day that I was really spiraling about some anxiety, and I called my friend up, and I was really looking for reassurance. Like, I wanted to be told that everything was fine, it was okay, not to worry about it. And instead, my friend was really like, \u201cSo have you heard of reassurance-seeking?\u201d And I was like, \u201cThat was not the conversation I thought that we were going to be having today.\u201d But it really helped me zoom out and look at\u2014okay, here I was thinking I was struggling with some new chronic disease or whatever it was that day that I was convinced I had. And instead, really look at this bigger picture of: Oh, look, no; you\u2019re struggling with something else.<\/em> And it\u2019s this desire to want to be told all the time that everything is okay.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Yeah. What\u2019s really interesting to me about that is your friend was able to see that what you wanted in that moment, what you were asking for, was reassurance. But that wasn\u2019t what you really needed.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Yeah. What I needed was to zoom out and learn about, like, this bigger experience that I have a tendency to get swept up in.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Yeah. And I don\u2019t think an AI could have seen that. Like, these models seem designed to just really take you at your word and just give you what you ask for.<\/p>\n

Read more I Can\u2019t Be the Only One Who Loves Dulles<\/a><\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> I really feel grateful that I had learned this about myself and these tendencies in myself before I\u2019ve interacted with this technology. I feel really lucky that I already know red flags that I personally need to be looking out for, to not cause more anxiety in myself before I started using these tools.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Yeah. This reminds me of something that philosopher Alexander Nehamas told me about AI in an interview I did with him a few months ago. We were talking about people using AI for friendship, actually, but I do think this also applies to using it for mental health. One of the arguments I often hear in favor of AI is that it\u2019s better than nothing.<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Mm.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> If you\u2019re anxious, it\u2019s late at night, maybe; you can\u2019t call your therapist, you can\u2019t call a friend. And you need someone to talk to. Then talking to AI is better than nothing. And what this philosopher said to me is: \u201cIt may be better than nothing, but it could also be worse than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean, the effectiveness of these tools really depends on you knowing what to ask for. And kind of the whole thing is\u2014it can be really hard to discern what you want versus what you need, especially when it comes to mental health. Totally.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beck: <\/strong>We\u2019re going to take a quick break. But when we come back\u2014AI is often marketed as a productivity tool. Is it shaping up that way?<\/p>\n

[Break<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> So, Elias and Ash, we\u2019ve spoken a lot about reassurance-seeking. Are there other tendencies that you see these tools kind of fueling?<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> Perfectionism is another one. I have a patient whose perfectionism focuses on travel and coming up with the best possible travel itinerary for his business trips. And he travels quite a bit. So: What is the absolute best departure time, the absolute best connection, the absolute best airline, the least expensive ticket? All these things.<\/p>\n

And, you know, he would spend two to three hours coming up with finding the perfect ticket pre\u2013ChatGPT. Now the process takes closer to seven or eight hours, because there\u2019s so many ways to optimize for ever better outcomes and ever better itineraries.<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> Chatbots remove, if you will, the natural circuit breakers. In addition to adding these continued engagement hooks.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Okay. So the chatbot might say something like:<\/p>\n

AI:<\/strong> Would you like me to compare the time it takes to drive, versus taking a shuttle or a train to the airport? Or do you want me to check if rideshare or car services could get you there faster than public transit?<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> So does it just then keep prompting you to refine it more and more and more?<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> These programs are trained to be endlessly validating, and endlessly agreeable.<\/p>\n

AI:<\/strong> Would you like me to check if shifting your departure by a few hours could\u2014what time of day are you planning to travel? Would you like me to see if a morning versus evening flight could save you time? I can keep running additional searches to compare different routes or times. Just let me know what variables you\u2019d like me to focus on.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> It makes it difficult for you as a user on your own\u2014especially if you have these tendencies\u2014to shut it down yourself.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Mhmm.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> If my patient was working with his therapist or was debating about this with his spouse, the right reaction would be to put an end to this conversation 15 or 20 minutes into it. And to alert him that this is very circular; this is very unproductive.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Do the AI models ever tell you, just: \u201cYou need to take a break\u201d?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> We\u2019re starting to see elementary steps toward break-taking in some models. But we\u2019re not really getting the recognition of these kind of upstream, covert avoidant coping behaviors. Where it may be going like: \u201cOh, you know, I\u2019m noticing that you\u2019re coming back to the same theme over and over again, and maybe trying to get an answer where there may be none.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> To the extent that chatbots pay attention to anything really mental-health-related, it still focuses very much on suicide, homicide. Yeah … around emergence of psychosis.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Are there changes in the design of these AI models that could help?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> There are concrete things that developers could be doing. Detecting some of the repetitive, looping queries; or lower-engagement modes where the chatbot slows its pace and the user has an option to decline follow-ups. One of the things that we suggest in our paper is, whether someone is working with a psychologist, a therapist, a mental-health practitioner or not, you can specify the overall preferences. If you\u2019re working on decreasing some of these more subtle avoidant coping behaviors, you can give it instructions. Like, \u201cHey, if you notice me asking repeatedly about health concerns, can you tell me to refocus on what I was originally there for? Or can you change the topic, or can you point it out?\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> I mean, that requires a good amount of self-awareness to be programming your own ChatGPT that way.<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> I wish, again, flashing back to, you know our experience researching social media. Like I wish we could count on these platforms to be good citizens and to do the right thing. I think regulation and more effort by policymakers is absolutely essential here and for this to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Yeah. So obviously people have a choice about whether and how to use AI in their personal time. But many companies are now expecting employees to use AI as part of their job, and they don\u2019t have a choice. How are you thinking about these people?<\/p>\n

Golden:<\/strong> Around work products itself, what we\u2019re seeing, ironically\u2014with the introduction right now of agentic AI\u2014is that people are actually taking longer to complete their deliverables, and they\u2019re engaging in more revisions. It\u2019s interfering with sleep. So it\u2019s kind of becoming this anti-productivity tool.<\/p>\n

I do realize AI is increasingly being incorporated into work streams, et cetera, and I\u2019d love to empower people with the message that even if it feels like you don\u2019t necessarily have a choice, even if you are being obligated to use it at work, I think you still have a choice about how you\u2019re using it in your personal life that\u2019s consistent with your values.<\/p>\n

And what we do in therapy is help people identify what their values are and translate those into kind of, like, specific rules or guidelines. At work, you can do the same thing. I\u2019m not gonna be using it for engaging in avoidant coping behaviors, like reassurance-seeking or whatever. So not, like, \u201cIs my boss happy with what I did?\u201d or, like, \u201cDid I handle that meeting okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

And the idea is to do this from a place of calm, when you have your insight, and you\u2019re able to connect to your values. Not at the moment when the pull is the strongest.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> So in your opinion, would it be best for people to just not use AI for reassurance when they\u2019re feeling anxious?<\/p>\n

Aboujaoude:<\/strong> I would say: Keep in mind the issues and the questions that we\u2019re raising. Ask yourself what function AI is serving. Ask yourself if it\u2019s keeping you from other important values and pursuits. Ask yourself: Is it serving the function of avoiding internal distress? Like, Am I escaping some kind of negative, intolerable emotion by going to the chatbot?<\/em> So I wouldn\u2019t say, \u201cDon\u2019t use AI for reassurance.\u201d I would say, \u201cBe an educated user of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Julie, I do think we are at a crossroads right now\u2014where we are as a population, really trying to figure out how and if we wanna use these tools.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Mmm.<\/p>\n

Brennan<\/strong>: It\u2019s a new technology. We\u2019re all learning quite live, how we wanna interact with AI. And, you know, a lot of people are still stuck on if we want to interact with AI.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> You know, I really liked what Ash said about values. And I think that could be a way to help answer the question of, you know: Would using a chatbot be better or worse than nothing for you in a given situation? Does it align with your values?<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> Yeah. We always have to grapple with what we want the boundaries of our technology to be able to do. And so there\u2019s this … I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen, there\u2019s this line that\u2019s like:<\/p>\n

\u201cA computer can never be held accountable; therefore, a computer must never make a management decision.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Which is supposedly from the \u201980s. It\u2019s this IBM-manual quote, when we were still figuring out what we wanted our relationship to computers to be. Hmm. And then the internet really played on that and made this iteration that was:<\/p>\n

\u201cA computer can never be spiteful or horny; therefore, a computer must never make art.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> I agree with that. (Laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> We both agree with that, as two people who care a lot about our art. But yeah; I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about what this iteration is for me. Like, okay, yes\u2014I believe that a computer can never be anxious or feel deep existential dread. Therefore, in this conversation, I don\u2019t necessarily want my computer making a therapy decision.<\/p>\n

Beck:<\/strong> Hmm. That\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> But the truth of the matter is: A lot of people are interacting with these tools. They are going to these platforms with these tools. And it\u2019s, it can feel\u2014<\/p>\n

I\u2019m, now I\u2019m kind of just spiraling about, like, where we\u2019re at as a society. And how we are going to overcome\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Beck: Oh man; why does this make me feel kind of anxious?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brennan:<\/strong> You know,<\/em> we just have all these tools that are only making us more anxious. And now people are going to them too.<\/em><\/p>\n

AI:<\/strong> Julie and Natalie, would you like me to ease that anxiety for you? Would you like me to help you feel a bit more at ease? Julie and Natalie, would you like me to help calm those worries for you? Is it okay if I try to help ease some of that stress you\u2019re feeling?<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beck: <\/strong>That\u2019s all for this episode of How to Touch Grass<\/em>. This episode was hosted by me, Julie Beck, and co-hosted and produced by Natalie Brennan. Production help from Elena Schwartz. Our editors are Claudine Ebeid and Jocelyn Frank. Fact-check by Gisela Salim-Peyer. Our engineer is Rob Smierciak. Rob also composed some of the music for this show. The executive producer of audio is Claudine Ebeid, and the managing editor of audio is Andrea Valdez.<\/p>\n

Beck: <\/strong>Next week on How to Touch Grass<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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Gilbert: <\/strong>I don\u2019t think anyone is supposed to see their own face as much as we do now. Like, I think about this a lot, like how our ancestors would have felt, like, catching a glance at themselves in a lake or\u2026 and instead we\u2019re just like: front-facing camera, front-facing camera, front-facing camera, and it\u2019s weird. It\u2019s warping our brains.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Beck: <\/strong>How do our online lives affect our offline experience of our bodies ? That\u2019s next time on How to Touch Grass<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Read more Out Here<\/a><\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers warn that the design of chatbots is a \u201cperfect storm\u201d for anxiety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts"],"yoast_head":"\nHow AI Could Make People More Anxious - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1776\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How AI Could Make People More Anxious - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Researchers warn that the design of chatbots is a \u201cperfect storm\u201d for anxiety.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1776\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-03T10:11:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"22 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"How AI Could Make People More Anxious\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-03T10:11:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776\"},\"wordCount\":4366,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/fac1a4dfecbd1876d62146a16d900940.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Podcasts\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1776\",\"name\":\"How AI Could Make People More Anxious - 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