Transformation of Urban Social Interaction in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Society
Abstract
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies into everyday urban life has fundamentally reshaped the patterns, quality, and dynamics of social interaction in urban communities. This study examined the transformation of social interaction among urban populations in Indonesia amid the proliferation of AI-driven platforms, smart city infrastructure, and digital communication systems. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining a quantitative survey of 480 urban residents across five Indonesian cities with qualitative interviews involving 32 key informants. Social interaction transformation was assessed across five dimensions: communication modality, social trust, community cohesion, digital inclusion, and civic participation. Results indicate a significant shift toward digitally mediated social interaction, with 68.7% of respondents reporting that online interaction has become their primary mode of daily communication. AI-enabled platforms significantly predicted urban social cohesion (β=0.521, p<0.001), while digital literacy moderated the relationship between AI adoption and positive social outcomes. Alarming disparities were identified between high-income metropolitan areas and lower-income urban peripheries, reflecting a persistent digital divide that exacerbates social inequality. The metaverse, algorithmic governance, and AI chatbots emerged as novel interaction environments that simultaneously democratize and fragment social engagement. These findings contribute to an emerging theoretical framework positioning digital transformation as an interaction-driven nexus between society, technology, and urban governance.
Keywords
Article statistics
In the last 12 months articles were viewed 327 times and downloaded 150 times.
View data as a table
| Month | Views | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2026 | 6 | 3 |
| Jun 2026 | 83 | 32 |
| Jul 2026 | 39 | 20 |
| Aug 2026 | 45 | 20 |
| Sep 2026 | 47 | 32 |
| Oct 2026 | 87 | 31 |
| Nov 2026 | 20 | 12 |
References
- Al-Raeei, M. (2024). The smart future for sustainable development: Artificial intelligence solutions for sustainable urbanization. Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3131
- Allam, Z., Sharifi, A., Bibri, S., Jones, D., & Krogstie, J. (2022). The metaverse as a virtual form of smart cities: Opportunities and challenges for environmental, economic, and social sustainability in urban futures. Smart Cities. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities5030040
- Balcombe, L. (2023). AI chatbots in digital mental health. Informatics, 10, 82. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics10040082
- Bibri, S., & Allam, Z. (2022). The metaverse as a virtual form of data-driven smart urbanism: On post-pandemic governance through the prism of the logic of surveillance capitalism. Smart Cities. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities5020037
- Bibri, S., Allam, Z., & Krogstie, J. (2022). The metaverse as a virtual form of data-driven smart urbanism: Platformization and its underlying processes, institutional dimensions, and disruptive impacts. Computational Urban Science, 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-022-00051-0
- Bokhari, S., & Myeong, S. (2022). Use of artificial intelligence in smart cities for smart decision-making: A social innovation perspective. Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020620
- Burrell, J., & Fourcade, M. (2021). The society of algorithms. Annual Review of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090820-020800
- Das, D. (2024). Exploring the symbiotic relationship between digital transformation, infrastructure, service delivery, and governance for smart sustainable cities. Smart Cities. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities7020034
- Dionisio, M., De Souza, S.J., Paula, F., & Pellanda, P. (2023). The role of digital social innovations to address SDGs: A systematic review. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03038-x
- Dwivedi, Y., Sharma, A., Rana, N., Giannakis, M., Goel, P., & Dutot, V. (2023). Evolution of artificial intelligence research in Technological Forecasting and Social Change: Research topics, trends, and future directions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122579
- Haluza, D., & Jungwirth, D. (2023). Artificial intelligence and ten societal megatrends: An exploratory study using GPT-3. Systems, 11, 120. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11030120
- He, W., & Chen, M. (2024). Advancing urban life: A systematic review of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence in urban design and planning. Buildings. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14030835
- Hohenstein, J., DiFranzo, D., Kizilcec, R., Aghajari, Z., Mieczkowski, H., Levy, K., Naaman, M., Hancock, J., & Jung, M. (2021). Artificial intelligence in communication impacts language and social relationships. Scientific Reports, 13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30938-9
- Krishna, R., Lee, D., Fei-Fei, L., & Bernstein, M. (2022). Socially situated artificial intelligence enables learning from human interaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115730119
- Mueller, B. (2022). Corporate digital responsibility. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 64, 689–700. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-022-00760-0
- Schmitt, M., & Flechais, I. (2023). Digital deception: Generative artificial intelligence in social engineering and phishing. Artificial Intelligence Review, 57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-024-10973-2
- Son, T.H., Weedon, Z., Yigitcanlar, T., Sanchez, T., Corchado, J., & Mehmood, R. (2023). Algorithmic urban planning for smart and sustainable development: Systematic review of the literature. Sustainable Cities and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104562
- Van Veldhoven, Z., & Vanthienen, J. (2021). Digital transformation as an interaction-driven perspective between business, society, and technology. Electronic Markets, 32, 629–644. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-021-00464-5
- Wolniak, R., & Stecuła, K. (2024). Artificial intelligence in smart cities — applications, barriers, and future directions: A review. Smart Cities. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities7030057
- Ye, X., Du, J., Han, Y., Newman, G., Retchless, D., Zou, L., Ham, Y., & Cai, Z. (2022). Developing human-centered urban digital twins for community infrastructure resilience: A research agenda. Journal of Planning Literature, 38, 187–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/08854122221137861