Should ChatGPT Write Your Breakup Text? Exploring User Needs and Perception of AI's Role in Ending Relationships
Information School, University of Washington
How they used Delve
A team at the University of Washington Information School used Delve to code interviews with 21 people about relationship breakups, working collaboratively from initial codes through consensus themes, then exporting the themes, codes and participant quotes out of Delve to write up the results.
“After this initial data familiarization phase, one team member systematically generated initial codes using the qualitative analysis tool Delve. The team collaboratively discussed these codes, combining, revising, and refining them.”
- Field
- Human-computer interaction / generative AI in personal relationships
- Data
- Interviews with 21 participants about romantic relationship and close friendship breakups, covering reasons, coping strategies, needs at each stage, communication methods, current technology use and how they imagine generative AI figuring in the process
- Approach
- Thematic analysis running concurrently with interviewing. After familiarisation the team dropped its initial split between romantic and friendship breakups, having found experiences largely similar, and coded them together. One member generated initial codes, the team collaboratively combined, revised and refined them, two authors then independently condensed codes into themes and met weekly to compare, discuss discrepancies and reach consensus. A later round merged related themes and discarded irrelevant ones, the team settling on breakup stages as the organising frame, after which one member applied the updated thematic structure across the entire dataset
- Data types
- Interviews
Abstract
Relationships are essential to our happiness and wellbeing, yet their dissolution-the final stage of a relationship’s lifecycle-is among the most stressful events individuals can experience, often leading to profound and lasting impacts. With the breakup process increasingly facilitated by technology, such as computer-mediated communication, and the likely future influence of generative AI (GenAI) tools, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 21 participants. We aim to understand: 1) the current role of technology in the breakup process, 2) the needs and support individuals seek during this time, and 3) how GenAI might address or undermine these needs. Our findings show that people have distinct needs at various stages of breakups. While currently technology plays an important role, it falls short in supporting users’ unmet needs. Participants envision that GenAI could: 1) aid in prompting self-reflection, providing neutral second opinions, and assisting with planning leading up to a breakup; 2) serve as a communication mediator, supporting wording and tone to facilitate emotional expression during breakup conversations; and 3) support personal growth and offer companionship after a breakup. However, our findings also reveal participants’ concerns about involving GenAI in this process. Based on our results, we discuss the potential opportunities, design considerations, and harms of GenAI tools in facilitating people’s relationship dissolution.
Citation
Yue Fu, Yixin Chen, Zelia Gomes Da Costa Lai, Alexis Hiniker (2024). Should ChatGPT Write Your Breakup Text? Exploring User Needs and Perception of AI's Role in Ending Relationships. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2401.09695