Everyday use of AI for emotion regulation depends on the person and the situation

Key Findings

• — AI use for confiding, advice or emotional support was reported on 2.0% of 134,275 prompts and by 17.3% of participants at least once over 13 days
• — Person level: use concentrated among students with greater lifetime AI use (odds ratios up to 3.12)
• — Situation level: AI use was more likely in digital, academic and interpersonal situations (odds ratios 1.22 to 2.56)
• — AI use did not predict next-prompt affect overall, but was followed by lower positive affect when neither stressors nor positive events had occurred; the association weakened as more events co-occurred

Methodology Notes

Ecological momentary assessment with four daily prompts; analytic window days 4 to 16 (13 days); 81 participants who completed only the first three days excluded; mean age 19.33 (SD 1.00). Ethics approval Wuhan University; administered in Chinese; not preregistered; data available on request; analysis code on OSF. The deposit states the manuscript is under review and references a Nature Portfolio reporting summary. Single-country student sample; self-report. No DOI on the OSF record at fetch time. Verified through the OSF API record (published 20 September 2026, moderation state accepted) and the deposited manuscript read by the sweep.

Sources