How Are Students Using ChatGPT? For Therapy, Breakups and Even Texting Friends
2025-05-01T15:26:56Z
Members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha are using ChatGPT outside of school for everything from advice, to work, to navigating breakups and roommate drama.
ChatGPT has earned a reputation as an educational cheating device that students lean on to revise or entirely write assignments and essays, answer questions on tests, solve math problems — all to varying degrees of accuracy. But many members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha use “Chat” outside of school for a host of other reasons.
One reason is texting with friends. As a communications student at Pace University with an interest in politics and digital communication, I’ve been struck by how many of my peers talk about using chatbots to have even the most basic, informal conversations. I wanted to learn more, so I spoke with fellow college students about their relationships with ChatGPT and how they use generative AI.
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Some mentioned using it to help with basic tasks at work, while several described it as an in-the-moment mental health resource. One person said it helped them solve a conflict with their roommate, while another even used it to help break up with their partner.
Even students who considered themselves frequent users of ChatGPT shared a sense of embarrassment about leaning on the platform. So our sources shared their first names only to speak candidly about why, when, and how they use ChatGPT. Here’s what they had to say.
MC, 21, Pace University
Though MC doesn’t interact with ChatGPT much anymore, they used to lean on it heavily. “I think, at the time, it also substituted some forms of human interaction for me,” they recall. “I started asking it about what to text a crush and random topics I was interested in because I was afraid my friends [would] get sick of me talking about certain things too often.”
MC continues, “I thought of ChatGPT like my little robot friend, as sad as that sounds,” pointing out that “it can’t judge you or make assumptions.”
MC says they stopped using ChatGPT so much after forming bonds with friends whom they trusted not to get bored by their preoccupations. “I think it’s sort of a cop-out for facing your fears,” they explain. “I guess my feeling now is that if someone is sick of hearing about something, they’ll tell me. I get hung up on certain things just as much as other people, and it’s not really fair to your friends to assume ill of them if it’s not justified, even in your anxieties.”
Clover, 20, Pace University
Clover says he mostly uses ChatGPT for school, but he admits once using it to break up with a boyfriend. “Low-key, I just didn’t want to deal with the emotional stress and burden of writing it out myself, so it was very helpful as a substitute for feeling those emotions,” he shares. “Thank you, Chat.”
Vivian, 22, Texas A&M University
Vivian, like Clover, mostly keeps her ChatGPT use school-related, but once felt she needed to use it to help solve an argument with her roommate — without any bias. “I used ChatGPT to make [the text I sent] more natural and less passive-aggressive sounding,” she says. “I needed to get my point across, but not sound so angry.”
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