Investing in social support — Robots as perfect partners?

While social embeddedness is vital for humans, not only from a psychological, but also on a somato-physiological level, - and hence has been excessively researched - it is very hard to define, what is needed to dispel the feeling of loneliness. The present paper endeavours to present the preliminary results of a research on how various forms of social support are perceived among young adults from different social backgrounds. The aim is to discover, whether an artificial being, a robot could be a (perfect) partner, and what would be needed for it to happen. In order to do so, a questionnaire has been created and disseminated; in the first phase among university students. The results might not be generalizable for the whole population, but are intriguing and spotlight some thought-provoking correlations.