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A 2025 study in Scientific Reports found that pet owners who leaned on animals as a substitute for human company were not less lonely for it; the substitution itself was linked to more loneliness, and that loneliness explained the drop in wellbeing
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What the study actually foundLi and Wong compared pet owners against non-owners and looked specifically at living arrangement and loneliness as the mechanism connecting pet ownership to wellbeing.
Among people living alone, pet owners reported less loneliness than non-owners, and that reduced loneliness explained most of the wellbeing benefit pets seemed to provide.
Leaning on an animal specifically in place of people wasn’t a workaround for loneliness.
Pets aren’t only a withdrawal mechanismA large study complicates the substitution story from the other direction.
What I’d take from thisThe distinction that actually seems to matter isn’t whether someone loves their pet a great deal.