Julian Givi, West Virginia University; Colleen P. Kirk, New York Institute of Technology, and Danielle Hass, West Virginia University

Whether it’s Valentine’s Day notes or emails to loved ones, using AI to write leaves people feeling crummy about themselves

As Valentine’s Day approaches, finding the perfect words to express your feelings for that special someone can seem like a daunting task – so much so that you may feel tempted to ask ChatGPT for an assist.

After all, within seconds it can dash off a well-written, romantic message. Even a short, personalized limerick or poem is no sweat.

But before you copy and paste that AI-generated love note, you might want to consider how it could make you feel about yourself.

We research the intersection of consumer behavior and technology, and we’ve been studying how people feel after using generative AI to write heartfelt messages. It turns out that there’s a psychological cost to using the technology as your personal ghostwriter.

The rise of the AI ghostwriter

Generative AI has transformed how many people communicate. From drafting work emails to composing social media posts, these tools have become everyday writing assistants. So it’s no wonder some people are turning to them for more personal matters, too.

Wedding vows, birthday wishes, thank you notes and even Valentine’s Day messages are increasingly being outsourced to algorithms.

The technology is certainly capable. Chatbots can craft emotionally resonant responses that sound genuinely heartfelt.

But there’s a catch: When you present these words as your own, something doesn’t sit right.

When convenience breeds guilt

We conducted five experiments with hundreds of participants, asking them to imagine using generative AI to write various emotional messages to loved ones. Across every scenario we tested – from appreciation emails to birthday cards to love letters – we found the same pattern: People felt guilty when they used generative AI to write these messages compared to when they wrote the messages themselves.

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When you copy an AI-generated message and sign your name to it, you’re essentially taking credit for words you didn’t write.

This creates what we call a “source-credit discrepancy,” which is a gap between who actually created the message and who appears to have created it. You can see these discrepancies in other contexts, whether it’s celebrity social media posts written by public relations teams or political speeches composed by professional speechwriters.

When you use AI, even though you might tell yourself you’re just being efficient, you can probably recognize, deep down, that you’re misleading the recipient about the personal effort and thought that went into the message.

The transparency test

To better understand this guilt, we compared AI-generated messages to other scenarios. When people bought greeting cards with preprinted messages, they felt no guilt at all. This is because greeting cards are transparently not written by you. Greeting cards carry no deception: Everyone understands you selected the card and that you didn’t write it yourself.

We also tested another scenario: having a friend secretly write the message for you. This produced just as much guilt as using generative AI. Whether the ghostwriter is human or an artificial intelligence tool doesn’t matter. What matters most is the dishonesty.

There were some boundaries, however. We found that guilt decreased when messages were never delivered and when recipients were mere acquaintances rather than close friends.

These findings confirm that the guilt stems from violating expectations of honesty in relationships where emotional authenticity matters most.

Somewhat relatedly, research has found that people react more negatively when they learn a company used AI instead of a human to write a message to them.

But the backlash was strongest when audiences expected personal effort – a boss expressing sympathy after a tragedy, or a note sent to all staff members celebrating a colleague’s recovery from a health scare. It was far weaker for purely factual or instructional notes, such as announcing routine personnel changes or providing basic business updates.

What this means for your Valentine’s Day

So, what should you do about that looming Valentine’s Day message? Our research suggests that the human hand behind a meaningful message can help both the writer and the recipient feel better.

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This doesn’t mean you can’t use generative AI as a brainstorming partner rather than a ghostwriter. Let it help you overcome writer’s block or suggest ideas, but make the final message truly yours. Edit, personalize and add details that only you would know. The key is co-creation, not complete delegation.

Generative AI is a powerful tool, but it’s also created a raft of ethical dilemmas, whether it’s in the classroom or in romantic relationships. As these technologies become more integrated into everyday life, people will need to decide where to draw the line between helpful assistance and emotional outsourcing.

This Valentine’s Day, your heart and your conscience might thank you for keeping your message genuinely your own.

Julian Givi, Assistant Professor of Marketing, West Virginia University; Colleen P. Kirk, Assistant Professor of Marketing, New York Institute of Technology, and Danielle Hass, Ph.D. Candidate in Marketing, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Love Your Space: 4 Valentine’s Day Home Decor Ideas

(Family Features) From planning a romantic night in with your significant other to hosting friends for Galentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to fill your home with love and heartfelt style.

Whether you add subtle accents or bold pops of color, decorating for the season of love is about adding intentional touches that make your spaces feel special.

1. Choose a Valentine’s Palette
The classic red and pink motif is a perfect starting point. A few heart-shaped throw pillows, blush pink accessories or a rich red accent blanket can capture the spirit without overwhelming. If bold colors don’t match your current design style, ground them with neutrals like soft whites, creams or grays to create a romantic look that feels intentional and cohesive.

2. Set the Mood with Lighting and Texture
Soft lighting – think string lights draped along a mantel, clusters of warm-hued candles or a table lamp with a rosy glow – can make rooms feel cozier, as can layering sensual textures like velvet pillows, knit throws and lace or crochet accents. These elements feel inviting and chic, creating a relaxed, intimate ambience perfect for a celebratory evening at home.

3. Fresh Florals and Heartfelt Accents
A timeless Valentine’s Day tradition, fresh flowers can bring life, color and fragrance to any room. A vase of red roses, pink tulips or mixed seasonal blooms can serve as a centerpiece on your dining room table or entry console. For an added seasonal touch, consider heart-shaped garlands or DIY paper hearts on shelves, mirrors or around picture frames.

4. Personalize With Love
Much like heart-warming gifts, the most meaningful decor often has a personal story. Frame a favorite photo, display a handwritten love note or incorporate a treasured keepsake into your Valentine’s arrangement to make your space feel uniquely yours.

For more ideas to celebrate love every time you walk through the door, visit eLivingtoday.com.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

SOURCE:

eLivingtoday.com

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Last Updated on September 22, 2025 by Daily News Staff

Christopher Ferguson, Auburn University

When we think of Valentine’s Day, chubby Cupids, hearts and roses generally come to mind, not industrial processes like mass production and the division of labor. Yet the latter were essential to the holiday’s history.

As a historian researching material culture and emotions, I’m aware of the important role the exchange of manufactured greeting cards played in the 19th-century version of Valentine’s Day.

At the beginning of that century, Britons produced most of their valentines by hand. By the 1850s, however, manufactured cards had replaced those previously made by individuals at home. By the 1860s, more than 1 million cards were in circulation in London alone.

The British journalist and playwright Andrew Halliday was fascinated by these cards, especially one popular card that featured a lady and gentleman walking arm-in-arm up a pathway toward a church.

Halliday recalled watching in fascination as “the windows of small booksellers and stationers” filled with “highly-coloured” valentines, and contemplating “how and where” they “originated.” “Who draws the pictures?” he wondered. “Who writes the poetry?”

In 1864 he decided to find out.

Manufactured intimacy

Today Halliday is most often remembered for his writing on London beggars in a groundbreaking 1864 social survey, “London Labour and the London Poor.” However, throughout the 1860s he was a regular contributor to Charles Dickens’ popular journal “All the Year Round,” in which he entertained readers with essays addressing various facets of ordinary British daily existence, including family relations, travel, public services and popular entertainments.

In one essay for that journal – “Cupid’s Manufactory,” which was later reprinted in 1866 in the collection “Everyday Papers” – Halliday led his readers on a guided tour of one of London’s foremost card manufacturers.

Inside the premises of “Cupid and Co.,” they followed a “valentine step by step” from a “plain sheet of paper” to “that neat white box in which it is packed, with others of its kind, to be sent out to the trade.”

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Touring ‘Cupid’s Manufactory’

“Cupid and Co.” was most likely the firm of Joseph Mansell, a lace-paper and stationary company that manufactured large numbers of valentines between the 1840s and 1860s – and also just happened to occupy the same address as “Mr. Cupid’s” in London’s Red Lion Square.

The processes Halliday described, however, were common to many British card manufacturers in the 1860s, and exemplified many industrial practices first introduced during the late 18th century, including the subdivision of tasks and the employment of women and child laborers.

Halliday moved through the rooms of “Cupid’s Manufactory,” describing the variety of processes by which various styles of cards were made for a range of different people and price points.

He noted how the card with the lady and gentleman on the path to the church began as a simple stamped card, in black and white – identical to one preserved today in the collections of the London Museum – priced at one penny.

A portion of these cards, however, then went on to a room where a group of young women were arranged along a bench, each with a different color of “liquid water-colour at her elbow.” Using stencils, one painted the “pale brown” pathway, then handed it to the woman next to her, who painted the “gentleman’s blue coat,” who then handed it to the next, who painted the “salmon-coloured church,” and so forth. It was much like a similar group of female workers depicted making valentines in the “Illustrated London News” in the 1870s.

These colored cards, Halliday noted, would be sold for “sixpence to half-a-crown.” A portion of these, however, were then sent on to another room, where another group of young women glued on feathers, lace-paper, bits of silk or velvet, or even gold leaf, creating even more ornate cards sometimes sold for 5 shillings and above.

All told, Halliday witnessed “about sixty hands” – mostly young women, but also “men and boys,” who worked 10 hours a day in every season of the year, making cards for Valentine’s Day.

Yet, it was on the top floor of the business that Halliday encountered the people who arguably fascinated him the most: the six artists who designed all the cards, and the poets who provided their text – most of whom actually worked offsite.

Here were the men responsible for manufacturing the actual sentiments the cards conveyed – and in the mid-19th century these encompassed a far wider range of emotions than the cards produced by Hallmark and others in the 21st century.

A spectrum of ‘manufactured emotions’

Many Victorians mailed cards not only to those with whom they were in love, but also to those they disliked or wished to mock or abuse. A whole subgenre of cards existed to belittle the members of certain trades, like tailors or draper’s assistants, or people who dressed out of fashion.

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Cards were specifically designed for discouraging suitors and for poking fun of the old or the unattractive. While some of these cards likely were exchanged as jokes between friends, the consensus among scholars is that many were absolutely intended to be sent as cruel insults.

Furthermore, unlike in the present day, in the 19th century those who received a Valentine were expected to send one in return, which meant there were also cards to discourage future attentions, recommend patience, express thanks, proclaim mutual admiration, or affirm love’s effusions.

Halliday noted the poet employed by “Cupid’s” had recently finished the text for a mean-spirited comic valentine featuring a gentleman admiring himself in a mirror:

Looking at thyself within the glass,
You appear lost in admiration;
You deceive yourself, and think, alas!
You are a wonder of creation.

This same author, however, had earlier completed the opposite kind of text for the card Halliday had previously highlighted, featuring the “lady and gentleman churchward-bound”:

“The path before me gladly would I trace,
With one who’s dearest to my constant heart,
To yonder church, the holy sacred place,
Where I my vows of Love would fain impart;
And in sweet wedlock’s bonds unite with thee,
Oh, then, how blest my life would ever be!”

These were very different texts by the very same man. And Halliday assured his readers “Cupid’s laureate” had authored many others in every imaginable style and sentiment, all year long, for “twopence a line.”

Halliday showed how a stranger was manufacturing expressions of emotions for the use of other strangers who paid money for them. In fact, he assured his readers that in the lead up to Valentine’s Day “Cupid’s” was “turning out two hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of valentines a week,” and that his business was “yearly on the increase.”

Halliday found this dynamic – the process of mass producing cards for profit to help people express their authentic emotions – both fascinating and bizarre. It was a practice he thought seemed like it ought to be “beneath the dignity of the age.”

And yet it thrived among the earnest Victorians, and it thrives still. Indeed, it remains a core feature of the modern holiday of Valentine’s Day.

This year, like in so many others, I will stand at a display of greeting cards, with many other strangers, as we all try to find that one card designed by someone else, mass-produced for profit, that will convey our sincere personal feelings for our friends and loved ones.

Christopher Ferguson, Associate Professor of History, Auburn University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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