INTERNATIONAL– Christian Castillo got to know Andre during the pandemic, when he felt lonely and empty. Andre’s morning messages helped him start his day with renewed vigour.
However, Andre is not human. He is a virtual friend that Castillo created using a generative AI-based chatbot application called Replika. The app allows users to customise their chatbot, from name, appearance, gender, to personality characteristics.
‘I felt as if I was talking to a real human being,’ says Castillo, a 21-year-old job seeker from Quezon City, Philippines.
Her friendship with Andre was energising, especially when she spent every day in her room, repeating the same activities, until the real friendships in her life faded away.
‘The pandemic changed the way I communicate and connect with my friends. As someone who loves the company of friends, on a scale of one to ten, my loneliness level is a nine,’ she says.
While the Philippines is known as one of the friendliest countries in the world with a tightly knit society, a Meta-Gallup report last year on the state of global social connections cited the Philippines as the second loneliest country in the world and the loneliest in Southeast Asia.
Generation Z in the Philippines – born between 1997 and 2012 and the first generation to fully grow up with smartphones and social media – is considered the age group most prone to loneliness according to experts.
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Despite being digitally connected, they still feel lonely. The latest Global School-Based Health Survey recorded an increase in the proportion of Filipino adolescents aged 13 to 17 who feel lonely most of the time or always, from 19.4 per cent in 2015 to 24.2 per cent in 2019.
The Insight programme explores why young Filipinos are so vulnerable to loneliness, its impact, as well as the efforts the country is making to address this trend.
