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By that I do not mean in a catfish way, but they don’t feel like real people. Sometimes I think that they’re just alternate accounts that I’ve created or they’re just AI. When I feel this way they feel like NPCs (non player characters, it’s a video game term), Ones I can talk to and bully/manipulate for no reason at all.
Is this normal?
That's how everyone is starting to feel to me. Funny as hell the people who don't even notice you're obviously not into their BS, they almost deserve to get fucked with imo for being so arrogant.
I think, as on many sites, a lot of profiles are fake. Or at least doubles.
Dating sites have bots to make them more lively. Phone computers are starting to use emotional recognition software. As we cacoon ourselves laying in bed, computer algorithms are playing with our minds to make our artificial experiences seem happy. Algorithms recognize what kind of porn you like. Since robots produce just about everything, we really don't have to work. Just lay in bed and masturbate to pass the time.
They might very well be computer algorithms.
I don't know what kind of imbecile would have inflicted simulated non-persons on the world, that can be used for nefarious or malicious purposes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_reasoning
They aren't real. Everyone who responds to you - including me - is indeed just a bot: we're nothing more than a bunch of electrons whizzing around silicon somewhere in Moscow, Shanghai, or Seattle.
More seriously, the feeling you describe is common, and the result of us interacting in a way that's completely novel. Humans are social animals, and much of the communication between people when we're face-to-face is non-verbal. In the early years of our lives, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to read other people, and communicate non-verbally.
Face-to-face communication often fails for a whole range of reasons. Communication limited to verbal conversation is even more prone to misunderstandings. Restricting conversation to text on a screen with the number of words pared to the minimum means it all becomes even more abstract and detached. If the person you're communicating with is just one of many tens or even hundreds of people you're intermittently in contact with, then it's very easy to no longer see them as human beings.
I suspect this is a defense mechanism. Psychologists have suggested that the human brain is only capable of maintaining a personal relationship with a maximum of around 150 people. If we never actually get to know online "friends" as individuals to begin with, then it's natural to avoid investing much energy in seeing them as real people with their own needs and feelings.