Socially Assistive Robots at Work: Making Break-Taking Interventions More Pleasant, Enjoyable, and Engaging

More than ever, people spend the workday seated in front of a computer, which contributes to health issues caused by excess sedentary behavior. While breaking up long periods of sitting can alleviate these issues, no scalable interventions have had long-term success in motivating activity breaks at work. We believe that socially assistive robotics (SAR), which combines the scalability of e-health interventions with the motivational social ability of a companion or coach, may offer a solution for changing sedentary habits. To begin this work, we designed a SAR system and conducted a within-subjects study with N = 19 participants to compare their experiences taking breaks using the SAR system versus an alarm-like device for one day each in participants' normal workplaces. Results indicate that both systems had similar effects on sedentary behavior, but the SAR system led to greater feelings of pleasure, enjoyment, and engagement. Interviews yielded design recommendations for future systems. We find that SAR systems hold promise for further investigations of aiding healthy habit formation in work settings.