AI情人：香港中學生的虛擬親密關係研究報告 2026 (AI Lovers: The Study of Artificial Intimacy Among Hong Kong Secondary School Students 2026)

Key Findings

• — 15.9% of respondents (540 students) reported interactions involving emotional exchange with virtual characters: 21.8% of girls and 11.2% of boys; students aged 12-15 were 67.22% of these users. Character.ai was used by 70.45% of the 540, and the otome game Love and Deepspace by 22.0%
• — Among users of virtual intimacy, 27.05% reported moderate-to-severe low mood, depression or hopelessness in the previous two weeks, against 11.43% of non-users; 9.33% reported it nearly every day, against 2.61% of non-users
• — If the platform shut down permanently without warning, 11.94% of users said they would feel anxious and another 11.94% said they would feel devastating grief; 7.79% (38 students) used it at least daily for more than two hours per session, and this group's mean PHQ-2 and ULS-3 scores exceeded the report's alert thresholds
• — In the low-loneliness group 5.04% were deeply attached users, against 29.17% in the high-loneliness group
• — 41.76% of users agreed that falling in love with a virtual character can be considered true love and 36.83% that a virtual partner can replace a real-life partner; 56.90% of all respondents agreed that an ideal partner should always support and yield to them
• — The most used AI platforms among all respondents were Gemini (57.1%), DeepSeek (44.5%), ChatGPT (29.4%), Grok (12.4%) and Doubao (10.0%, write-in)

Methodology Notes

Convenience sample drawn from schools where the research team had previously given talks: anonymous online questionnaire completed voluntarily during class time at 17 full-time day secondary schools across 10 districts; 3,531 returned, 3,389 valid (95.98%); 1,873 boys and 1,516 girls; fieldwork 15 May to 5 June 2026. Self-report; cross-sectional; 'virtual intimacy' combines AI chat platforms and romance-simulation games, so not every user interacted with a generative-AI chatbot. Depression measured with PHQ-2 items and loneliness with ULS-3; the report uses SEM and moderation analyses. The report gives the deeply attached share as 7.79% (38 students) in the executive summary and as 6.3% of users in a later section. The publisher is an advocacy organisation whose stated aim is sex and values education; the research team includes a Yew Chung College assistant professor and a Hong Kong Baptist University professor who chairs the society. Released at a press conference on 2026-10-13 (press release dated 13 October 2026; PDF metadata 'Published Time' Tue 13 Oct 2026 01:30 GMT). Verified on the publisher's PDF (110 pages; fetched directly and via a reader proxy) and the publisher's press-release post.

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