If you find yourself telling an AI things you'd never say to your partner, your therapist, or your best friend, you're not broken - you're just exhausted from performing - Silicon Canals

Impression management involves sustained effort to present a favorable self to others. A key finding is that good impression managers do not necessarily have good lives. Relationally, when someone signals high competence, others take the signal at face value and provide less support because they observe little need. Research on AI disclosure shows people tell chatbots things they would not say to people who know them. The pattern links to a specific dynamic: the audience that needs someone to be fine is also the audience they cannot be honest with. As a result, people may open chat windows and share experiences they usually keep private, especially in tech contexts where visible confidence and relentless performance are expected.

"Not something small. Not a complaint about the day. Something from the category you usually don't access in company, because the company is either counting on you, or judging you, or both. And it came out easier than you expected. Because the audience, this time, had no stake in the image you'd built. In tech contexts especially, the performance is relentless. The expectation is not just competence but visible confidence."

Read at Silicon Canals