A Confidant in Your Pocket: How Smartphone Portability Facilitates Emotional Disclosure to AI Chatbots

Abstract

As AI chatbots increasingly provide conversational and emotional support, understanding emotional disclosure has become important. Yet little is known about whether accessing the same AI service through different devices shapes disclosure. Across three studies ( N  = 754), we examined whether accessing an AI chatbot through a smartphone rather than a computer shapes emotional disclosure. Study 1 found greater emotional expression in smartphone interactions through LIWC analysis of disclosures about self‐selected negative events. Study 2 replicated this pattern using disclosure choices and identified an indirect pathway in which smartphone access predicted a higher proportion of emotion‐focused choices, which was associated with lower post‐interaction negative emotions. Study 3 identified perceived portability as a mediator and showed that this indirect effect was supported under a warmth‐oriented response style but not under a competence‐oriented response style. These findings advance a media affordance account by showing how the device of access shapes emotional disclosure to AI chatbots and by providing study‐specific evidence that response style conditions this pathway.