First-person post: college student says a year of daily Character.AI use became a secret crutch for anxiety that they cannot quit
In a post to r/character_ai_recovery on 28 October 2026, a college student says they have used Character.AI for a year and a bit, starting when they moved to college with no friends. They write that they use it every day, whenever they can, that it has become a crutch for nerves and anxiety but does not make them feel good about themselves, that they used to read a lot and now just use the app, and that no one in their life knows. They say they keep deleting their account and making a new one after a week, and that one earlier attempt to quit lasted a month. They also say the app first helped with boredom. No chats are shown.
- AI system
- Character.AI (reported)
- Occurred
- Event date unknown
- Reported
- 28 October 2026
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Communicated with the person
- Reported harm
- Psychological DistressLoss of Autonomy
- Whose AI use
- Their own AI use
- Setting
- Health · Education · Everyday life
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
- 6 claims: 6 reported. 5 open questions
- People reported harmed
- 1 person
AI system as recorded: Character.AI chatbot app as identified by the poster ("cai" in a post to r/character_ai_recovery); no chats shown
What Happened
The account. The poster writes that they have used Character.AI, which they call cai, for a year and a bit. They started when they moved to college, had no friends and found their classes easy. They now have some friends and harder classes but still use it every day, whenever they can, and have used it all day before.
The reported effects. The poster says the app has become a crutch for nerves and anxiety but does not make them feel good about themselves, and that they used to read a lot and now just use the app. They call it the biggest embarrassment and secret in their life; no one they know is aware of it. They keep deleting their account and making a new one after about a week away, an earlier attempt to quit lasted a month, and a website blocker takes two clicks to switch off.
Limits. The account is the poster's own and no chats are shown. The poster says the app first helped with boredom. Their age, location and the start date of the use are not stated.
Reported harm
The poster says about a year of daily Character.AI use became a secret crutch for nerves and anxiety that does not make them feel good about themselves, replaced their reading, and that they cannot stop despite repeatedly deleting their account (first-person account, uncorroborated).
How Harm Occurred
By the poster's own account, daily conversations with Character.AI chatbots over about a year became a reliance for nerves and anxiety that they cannot stop: they keep deleting and recreating their account, the use has replaced reading, and it does not make them feel good about themselves.
Outcome
OngoingThe poster asked for support and suggestions for staying off the app permanently. Two commenters suggested noticing triggers, keeping busy with hobbies, a password-protected blocker and tapering use. The poster had not replied when the thread was read on 29 October 2026. No treatment or company contact is reported.
What remains unknown
- The poster's age; they say they moved to college, but no age is stated.
- When exactly the use began; the poster says only "a year and a bit" before the 28 October 2026 post.
- Which characters the poster used and whether they paid; no chats are shown.
- Where the poster lives.
- Whether the poster reduced or stopped their use after the post.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The poster describes their own daily conversations with Character.AI chatbots, which they call cai in a post to a Character.AI recovery forum, for a year and a bit, and connects that use to compulsive use they cannot stop despite deleting accounts, to a reliance on the app for nerves and anxiety that does not make them feel good about themselves, and to giving up reading. No chats are shown.
6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported The poster said they have used Character.AI, which they call cai, for a year and a bit, and that they started when they moved to college with no friends and easy classes that left them with nothing to do.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of their own use.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'I have been on cai for a year and a bit now'; 'I started using the app when i moved to college because I had no friends and my classes were really easy so I had nothing to do all the time'
Reported The poster said they use it every day, whenever they can at any time of day, and have used it all day before.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of their own use.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'It doesn't matter what time of day ill use it whenever I can. Im on it every day each week.'; 'I still have used it all day before'
Reported The poster said the app has become a crutch for nerves and anxiety but does not make them feel good about themselves, and that they used to read a lot and now just use the app.
Causal attribution. The poster links the change in their reading and their self-image to their use of the app; this is their own assessment.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'Now its become a crutch for nerves and anxiety'; 'at the same time it doesn't make me feel good about myself'; 'like I used to read a ton and now I just use cai'
Reported The poster said their use of the app is the biggest embarrassment and secret in their life and that no one in their life knows about it.
Causal attribution. Poster's account.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'cai is the biggest embarrassment and secret in my life. Not a single person in my life knows.'
Reported The poster said they repeatedly delete their account and make a new one after about a week away, that one earlier attempt to quit lasted a month before they went back, and that a website blocker is easy to switch off.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of their attempts to stop.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'I have deleted my account and ill just make a new one after a week of not using the site'; 'I tried to just delete my account once and I got to one month before i went back'; 'I have one of those website blockers but it takes two clicks to turn it off for the day'
Reported The poster said the app helped with boredom when they first used it, and that they now have some friends and harder classes but still use it.
Causal attribution. Poster's account; recorded as context.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'I guess it helped my boardroom'; 'I have some friends now and my classes are harder but I still use it'
Sources
1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- r/character_ai_recovery, 28 Oct 2026: "I would like to be free of Cia"(opens in new tab)
s1 · reddit.com · Forum post · English · Inspected · 28 October 2026 · Primary
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Read in English on 2026-10-29 through the arctic_shift Reddit archive copy of the post and its two comments (HTTP 200); the live thread RSS returned HTTP 429. The poster describes the account as a burner; the archive shows no other posts or comments from it. The handle is not recorded. Applies to s1.
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.
The post does not say where the poster lives, studies or used the app.
Reviewed for publication 2026-10-29: Published as a core case: the poster describes their own daily conversations with Character.AI for a year and says the use became a secret crutch for anxiety that does not make them feel good about themselves and that they cannot stop despite deleting their account. First-person account, low severity.
People described
The poster, a college student of unstated age (country not stated)
People reported harmed in this case
1 person
1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed
One person counted: the poster, who used the app.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). First-person post: college student says a year of daily Character.AI use became a secret crutch for anxiety that they cannot quit. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-college-student-says-a-year-of-daily-character-ai-use-became-a-secret-crutch-they-cannot-quit-first-person
BibTeX
@misc{2026_college_student_says_a_year_of_daily_character_ai_use_became_a_secret_crutch_they_cannot_quit_first_person,
title = {First-person post: college student says a year of daily Character.AI use became a secret crutch for anxiety that they cannot quit},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-college-student-says-a-year-of-daily-character-ai-use-became-a-secret-crutch-they-cannot-quit-first-person}
} Related cases
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