From 2001 to 2009, the greatest proportion of lonely people in Australia were aged 65 and older, according to the annual HILDA survey.

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But this is no longer the case. Since 2008, loneliness among younger generations has been steadily increasing, with Australians aged 15-24 now having the greatest proportion of lonely people.

The solution? Well, that's easy. According to Silicon Valley, it's AI.

In a recent podcast interview promoting Meta's new AI chatbot, Mark Zuckerberg claimed the average American had three friends - but we should have "meaningfully more. I think, like, 15". Zuckerberg, unsurprisingly, believes AI will be able to fill the gap in meaningful friendships.

This has sparked concern from psychologists, who assert there is no perfect number of friends and indeed, if there were, it would be significantly lower than 15.

The message from Silicon Valley is clear - you don't need people or friendship. You need their chatbots.

Yet research results reveal that high daily use of chatbots - across all modalities and conversation types - correlated with higher rates of loneliness, dependence, problematic use, and lower socialisation.

While this is concerning for all people, it is even more so for........

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