How Your iPhone Is Making You Lonely

Conversations with Siri have almost become a pastime as people find new ways to garner funny responses from the iPhone personal assistant. A new study indicates that time spent chilling with your phone, or other human-like gadgets like Amazon's Alexa, could actually hinder your IRL relationships. Those who are lonely typically spend time with real people as a way to feel better. However, researchers say that devices mimicking realistic personal responses are now taking the place of, well, their actual human counterparts. "Generally, when people feel socially excluded, they seek out other ways of compensating, like exaggerating their number of Facebook friends or engaging in prosocial behaviors to seek out interaction with other people," says Jenny Olson, study co-author and marketing professor at the University of Kansas, in a statement.