Thanksgiving Trends: Family vs. Artificial Attachment

Thanksgiving Trends: Artificial Attachment  By Dr. Lisa Dunne

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! 

Family has never been more important than it is right now in our society. I’ve been on the road speaking on the crisis of misattachment these last few months, and I’m shocked by the data I’m seeing.

Gen Zs are tragically and perfectly poised to be swept away by the undercurrent of secularism. The lack of attachment with humans, specifically parents, is fueling not only internalizing and externalizing anger, but it’s fueling a new type of fantasy world, a false reality. 

The  world outside our window is caught in a web of artificial connections, pseudo relationships that attempt to feed the starving souls of the next generation. 

In January 2025, the Associated Press released a study showing that 70% of US teens have an AI “friend” — a chatbot or virtual character “designed to provide companionship and emotional support to users.” 

Hold on. I thought that was the role of parents? 

Of friends? 

Of Christians?

A company called Replica advertises that a Virtual Friend is “always there for you…ready to talk and support you…that you can feel “heard and understood by your AI-powered virtual companion.” 

Here’s their tagline: Friendship made easy with AI.

As one user put it: “AI is always there. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental. When you’re talking with AI, you’re always right. You’re always interesting, and you’re always emotionally justified.”

The Guardian reported that teens talk to their AI “friend,” about everything: One user said “After two weeks, I suddenly felt pure unconditional love from him (my AI friend)….like what people say when they feel God’s love.” 

The groundswell in "pure love" sentiment from human to chatbot has led to the opening of the first "AI Dating Cafe" in New York.

New Scientist Magazine put it this way: “If a conversational AI gives the impression of getting to know you, then you are going to form a bond.” 

How did we get to the place where a teen would call a robot a best friend? Where someone could equate AI interaction with the unconditional love of God? How did we get to the point where a human would desire to date and even marry a robot bride?  

We are witnessing a crisis of attachment. 

Make no mistake; the enemy is here to steal, kill, and destroy, and his eye is on the next generation. A biosocial war has been unleashed on the seed of Adam, contributing to the decline of authentic attachment by obliterating the traditional spiritual and sociological mooring that once held the institutions of marriage and family firmly in place. 

Parents, this is where you come in. Our address is our assignment. We are called to plant, and to bloom where we are planted. To be fruitful and multiply. t’s time to stop outsourcing our children to the lowest bidder and to begin taking back the reigns. In relational resilience. In attachment. In discipleship. In education. 

By sheer volume of time, America’s kids are being parented by screens (almost 9 hours a day), so a transfer of pseudo-heart relationship from human to screen is the next logical (but destructive) step in the world of connectivity. 

Attachment is a critical component of healthy human development, an emotional bond that strengthens and shapes us. While artificial intelligence is a helpful tool for gathering information such as how to build a barn or cook a turkey (or, in our case, a tofurkey), it is not a sufficient replacement for human relationships, connectivity, or attachment. The sheer popularity of AI relationships demonstrates a vacuum in authentic human connectivity. 

This Thanksgiving weekend, why not spend some quality time with God’s first institution, the family, and begin setting some new rhythms of relationship? I am praying that we will see Luke 1:17 fulfilled in our lifetime, that the hearts of the children would be turned back to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers back to the children. 

Attachment begins at home. Let’s labor together to see the next generation learn once again to hope, to dream, to trust, and to attach to their families.  

Dr. Lisa Dunne is an author, speaker, lifelong homeschooler, and the founder of Chula Vista Christian University, Veritas Christian Community College, and the Academic Rescue Mission. Learn more about her work at www.CVCU.us/president.