How Are AI Chatbots Helping Students To Reduce Stress?

AI is the best innovation of this decade. Artificial intelligence has created endless possibilities. Young adults and teenagers are their highest consumers and use it to get things done.

There is another thing which is at an all-time high. We are talking about student stress. According to the reports, about 75% of students feel stressed all the time. 12% feel a crippling amount of stress in their school and only 6% of students don’t feel stressed at all.

So what can we do to tackle this? This is where AI chatbots come into the picture. But how can these chatbots solve this issue and help us?

This is what we are going to talk about in this blog. How can AI chatbots help to reduce stress? Before we get into this we need to discuss the reasons behind their stress levels so that we can understand it better and see how chatbots are tackling this problem.

So let’s not waste any more time and get into it.

What Is The Main Cause Of Student Stress?

With more than 75% of students experiencing stress. Which is more than half of the young population, it is obvious that we are doing something wrong. In this section, we will list the things seen as the biggest triggers of stress among students.

Here, we have compiled a list of reasons as follows:

• Tight Schedules

Students especially those in their high schools. These students are scheduled in their calendars till the last minute. Students these days are expected to be good at everything.

They should be good at studies, have a social life, take care of themselves, make memories, make friends, get into cocurricular activities, and whatnot.

While doing all that they are often left burnt out and unable to focus on one thing at a time. Most of them try to juggle all the things at once aka multitasking which leads to further burnout. They get this feeling of missing out, popularly known as FOMO.

As a result, they miss out on all the opportunities to rejuvenate their mind. All this leads to high stress levels and feeling burnt out, if not treated at the time it can lead to serious health problems both physical and mental.

• Bullying and Other Things

Bullying in itself is a traumatising event. We have seen and heard how badly it affects the victims and for some, these scars stay for life. Bullying can be done in many forms, it ranges from calling someone names to physically abusing someone.

Not just bullying but there are other things which make students stressed. It may differ from country to country, for example in the USA students are stressed over school shootings. Meanwhile, in Japan, students are stressed about societal expectations, etc.

• Financial Stress

Financial problems are seen to be a huge contributor to stress for students. To get higher education, people take loans and they spend a significant amount of their income and time to cover up their expenses.

Inflation and higher living expenses are only making things worse. Many students work two to three jobs to support their lives and pay their loans. Sadly, most of these jobs are low-paying or minimum-wage ones which are difficult and exhausting.

• Social Media

It is not possible when we talk about students and not talk about social media. For Genz, it is an integral part of their life as they have grown up with it. It is a great tool to connect with friends and celebrate their achievements.

But this is where it becomes problematic, the students who are already burdened with their tight schedules fear they are missing out on life. Social media makes this fear worse.

When their friends are planning foreign trips and making big wins. People subconsciously compare their milestones and achievements with others. This makes them feel more conscious that they are still not getting anything done.

All these things add up and make them stressed over their future and life.

How Can AI Chatbots Help Students Cope With Stress?

This is where we talk about how an AI chatbot can help students cope with stress. We have made a list of things which show the reasons why chatbots are proving to be effective in reducing stress levels among students. These reasons are written as follows:

• 24x7 Availability

Unlike humans who have limits on availability. Chatbots are available 24/7. There are many chatbots which are powered with artificial intelligence solely to talk to people and make them feel better about themselves.

As many people don’t have friends or someone who will listen to them talking and telling them that it is okay to feel sad and acknowledge their struggle.

• Help With Emotional Support

Emotional support stands for the ways people express that they care about each other. It can be done in both verbal and non-verbal ways. A human needs to have an emotional support system for a healthy and long life.

For AI chatbots, it is not yet possible to communicate in a nonverbal manner. So it focuses on the verbal part of the communication. These AIs are designed in such a way that they empathise with the user.

• No Judgement

Unlike humans, these chatbots are made just to make you feel better. They don’t judge you for how you feel about things. They are better at listening and understanding what the user is trying to express and give you a safe space to talk about your problems and feelings.

These AI companions are smart and learn from their mistakes. They are made in such a way that the more you talk to them, the better they will get at it. Many times they can give a few tips and tricks that you can do to feel better. However, their response does not replace the diagnosis that is done by a trained medical professional.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of this blog on how AI chatbots help students reduce stress. We have started this blog stating that before we get the solution it is important to know the problem. Hence, in the beginning, we talked about the problems and in the second section, we have given reasons why chatbots have the potential to reduce student stress.

That’s all I have to say about this topic. Thank you for reading till the end.