A team of researchers from Sun Yat-sen University has found that when a person’s sleep pattern is out of step with daily demands, fatigue can heighten social anxiety and push individuals to seek evaluation from machines rather than humans. In four interconnected experiments, Xiaoyu Zhou, Yuxuan Chu, Liwei Zhang and Jianping Liang reported a clear link between social jetlag and a preference for AI evaluators, especially in dating and recruitment scenarios. The work was published in Computers in Human Behavior.
Social jetlag refers to the misalignment between the body’s internal clock and external schedules such as work or study timetables. The researchers note that this mismatch can produce fatigue and affect emotional regulation, making people unusually sensitive to how others judge them.
In the first study, 250 participants were assessed for their natural chronotype and then randomly assigned to complete a second survey at either 8:00 a.m. or 8:00 p.m. the following day. For evening types, the morning deadline created a mismatch with their biological clock, simulating social jetlag. Participants then read a scenario about registering for a dating app that would evaluate their attractiveness to propose potential matches, and they chose whether this evaluation would be conducted by a human staff member or an AI system. Those experiencing social jetlag were significantly more likely to opt for the AI evaluation, while participants whose schedules aligned with their chronotype showed no strong preference.
The second study involved 226 participants and measured real-world social jetlag by comparing the midpoints of sleep on workdays and free days. After imagining a resume screening for a job, participants chose between a human recruiter or an AI recruitment system and then completed a questionnaire assessing current social anxiety. The results mirrored the first study: greater social jetlag correlated with a higher likelihood of selecting the AI interviewer, and social anxiety acted as a statistical bridge between the two variables.
For the third study, 240 participants were recruited on a Monday morning, a time when weekend-induced social jetlag is common. The setup mirrored the dating-app scenario but offered no descriptive information about how the evaluators operated, requiring participants to rely on intuition. Alongside social anxiety, the researchers measured the participants’ desire to avoid interpersonal contact and their motivation to complete tasks efficiently. Once again, social jetlag predicted a strong preference for the AI evaluator, with 80 per cent choosing the algorithm. The analysis indicated that social anxiety was the sole psychological driver of this choice, with neither avoidance nor efficiency motives explaining the preference.
The final study examined whether the way AI is framed influences the decision. Two groups of 218 participants received a scenario in which an AI-based virtual app would evaluate a user’s clothing choices. One group was told the AI evaluated outfits objectively based on standardised data, while the other group was told the AI had learned subjective aesthetic biases and evaluated outfits emotionally. When the AI was framed as objective, participants with greater social jetlag reported a stronger intention to rely on its evaluations. When described as subjective and capable of emotional bias, the effect disappeared, suggesting that the lure of AI arises from a desire to escape subjective human judgment.
The researchers caution that all four experiments rely on self-reported sleep schedules and hypothetical scenarios. They note that real-world evaluations involve power dynamics and financial consequences that could alter how anxious individuals weigh AI versus human assessment. Future studies could track actual user behaviour on digital platforms and explore how chronic social jetlag or factors such as technical literacy and distrust of opaque algorithms influence decision-making.
The study, Too tired to be judged by humans: Social jetlag increases preference for AI through social anxiety, was authored by Xiaoyu Zhou, Yuxuan Chu, Liwei Zhang and Jianping Liang.
