Reducing Loneliness Among Aging Adults: The Roles of Personal Voice Assistants and Anthropomorphic Interactions

Abstract

The perception of feeling lonely is an influential factor in determining quality of life among aging adults. As the US Census Bureau projects that the number of Americans ages 65 and older will double by 2060, reducing loneliness is imperative. Personal voice assistants (PVAs) such as Amazon's Echo offer the ease-of-use of voice control with a friendly, helpful artificial intelligence. This study aimed to understand the influence of a PVA on loneliness reduction among adults of advanced ages, i.e., 75+, and explore anthropomorphism as a potential underlying mechanism. Participants (N = 16) ages 75 or older used an Amazon Echo PVA for 8 weeks in an independent living facility in the Midwest. Surveys were used to collect information about perceived loneliness, and PVA interaction data was recorded and analyzed. Participants consistently exceeded the required daily interactions. As hypothesized, after the first 4 weeks of the intervention, aging adults reported significantly lower loneliness (baseline mean = 2.22, SD = 0.42; week 4 mean = 1.99, SD = 0.45, Z = −2.45, and p = 0.01). Four dominant anthropomorphic themes emerged after thematic analysis of the entire 8 weeks' PVA interaction data (Cohen's Kappa = 0.92): (1) greetings (user-initiated, friendly phrases); (2) comments/questions (user-initiated, second-person pronoun), (3) polite interactions (user-initiated, direct-name friendly requests), (4) reaction (user response to Alexa). Relational greetings predicted loneliness reductions in the first 4 weeks and baseline loneliness predicted relational greetings with the PVA during the entire 8 weeks, suggesting that anthropomorphization of PVAs may play a role in mitigating loneliness in aging adults.

Talk it Out: Teen Reactions to a Supportive Conversational Agent

“…In our view, the reported by our participants benefits of the interventional conversational agent outweigh reports of inconveniences and annoyances of using CoBuddy (usually based on the current technical limitations known to the designers, (Følstad et al, 2021)). Similar to prior work (Fitzpatrick, 2017;Jones et al, 2021;O'Dea et al, 2020), the participants appreciated the interactions, and reported increased self-awareness and familiarity with behavioral strategies (e.g., meditation, breathing, positive thinking) to deal with loneliness, anxiety, and other negative feelings. The predictable schedule of interactions itself created a sense of pleasant anticipation and structure for most of our participants.…”

“…Results from the study of Vincent, a chatbot with self‐compassion exercises, showed an increase in self‐compassion in its users (Lee, 2019). Recent studies of older adults (Jones et al, 2021; Pradhan et al 2019) demonstrated that interactions with the Amazon Alexa decreased loneliness in older adults and increased feeling of social companionship (Jones et al, 2021). Kim et al (2018) examined teen requirements for the supportive CA, and found that features related to listening, timely and accurate responses, and protection of user privacy were important to participants.…”

Effects of communication style, anthropomorphic setting and individual differences on older adults using voice assistants in a health context

“…In contrast, the social-oriented communication style of the voice assistant was conversational. In addition to providing necessary guidance and information, the voice assistants maintained informal conversations through small talk, questions, exclamatory feedback, and encouragement [ 4 ]. We obtained common questions regarding relevant scenes from older adults in the community and then searched the web for relevant questions to obtain answers.…”

“…Low-income older adults who use voice assistants like the ability to by notified regarding harmful events, such as changes in health indicators [29]. The lonelier that an older adult is, the more likely he or she is to perceive a voice assistant as human, and as the older adults increasingly anthropormorphise the voice assistant, their loneliness decreases [4]. Ghorayeb et al found that among older adults who have already tried smart home monitoring technologies, acceptance increases over time and with use [30].…”

“…People can converse with their IoT smart devices, such as smart lights or smart TVs, as with a friend via an IoT voice assistant in a smart home environment [1]. An IoT voice assistant could act as a health assistant for older adults, such as by providing updated dietary health information [2], asking healthrelated questions [3], reducing loneliness [4], and encouraging fitness exercise [5,6], all of which could reduce pressure on the health care system during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic [7]. In addition, an IoT voice assistant benefits older adults because interaction with voice assistants is more natural for such adults than interaction with smartphones or computers [2].…”