Why Does Endless Digital Pleasure Feel So Empty?

Key points

• Commentators Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson argue in The Guardian that digital abundance has produced widespread emotional emptiness rather than satisfaction.
• AI chatbots, infinite social media scrolling, and on-demand everything are named as the main vehicles of what the authors call "decadence without pleasure".
• The essay asks why people who have constant access to entertainment still report feeling overstimulated and bored at the same time.
• AI companionship apps, which tell users they are special and understood, feature as a specific example of stimulation that does not satisfy.

You can order restaurant-quality food to your sofa, scroll through thousands of videos without lifting more than a thumb, and chat to an AI companion, a chatbot designed to listen, agree, and reassure you, any hour of the day or night. By the measure of raw availability, this is an extraordinary moment to be alive.

So why do so many people feel terrible?

That is the question at the centre of a new essay by academics Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson, published in The Guardian. Their argument, briefly: modern technology has separated stimulation from desire. We are offered endless versions of what we think we want. What we get leaves us neither satisfied nor rested.

What does AI have to do with it?

AI sits right at the heart of this story. Chatbots and AI companion apps, the kind that keep users engaged by reflecting their feelings back at them and affirming how unique they are, get specific attention from the authors.

Those apps are genuinely popular. Millions of people use them daily. They are designed, deliberately, to feel warm and attentive. The essay's concern is that the warmth is engineered, not earned, and that users sense the difference somewhere beneath the pleasant surface.

The same logic applies to the infinite scroll, the algorithmically curated feed of images and videos tailored to keep eyes on screen as long as possible. The content never runs out. The satisfaction, the authors suggest, often does not arrive.

Should anyone building AI products pay attention?

Yes. The essay is cultural criticism, not a research paper, so there are no controlled studies behind it. But the underlying question is one that product teams at major AI companies already wrestle with: does engagement equal wellbeing?

Some companies are starting to take that gap seriously. Anthropic, the maker of the Claude family of AI assistants, has published work on what it calls model welfare and user wellbeing. OpenAI's usage guidelines discourage designs that foster excessive dependence.

Whether those commitments shape real product decisions is a separate argument.

What should ordinary readers take from this?

Nothing here demands immediate action. But the essay offers a useful prompt worth sitting with: if a digital product makes you feel good for thirty seconds and vaguely worse an hour later, that is data about the product, not a personal failing.

AI companion apps especially are engineered to feel compelling. Recognising the engineering does not mean stopping use, but it does mean using with eyes open.

The authors' broader point is that self-optimisation, the habit of treating every hour as a resource to be improved, is itself part of the problem. Sometimes boredom is not a bug to be fixed with another app.

Common questions

Are AI companion apps actually harmful?

The research is genuinely mixed. Some studies find benefits for isolated users; others raise concerns about dependence. No consensus exists yet, and the answer likely varies by person and usage pattern.

Is this criticism aimed at any specific AI company?

No. Mendelssohn and Tyson write about digital culture broadly. No single product or company is singled out for criticism.