Synthetonia: Tonal Strain as a Candidate Facet of AI Fatigue

AI fatigue is no longer unstudied, but existing scales measure interaction cost: volume of generated output, the burden of verification, and prompt iteration. Synthetonia isolates a distinct source of strain: tonal sychronicity and register-level satiation caused by prolonged exposure to hyper-optimized, low-variance conversational AI prose. This position paper defines Synthetonia, articulates its theoretical grounding in stimulus habituation and affective flattening, and situates it alongside concurrent fatigue frameworks and historical psychological strain constructs (such as the Uncanny Valley, Technostress, and Zoom Fatigue). It outlines a clear empirical agenda—including scale development, between-subjects experiments, and transcript analysis—designed to test the construct's discriminant validity. This record includes the manuscript PDF.