Using Robots to Facilitate and Improve Social Interaction Between Humans: An Exploratory Qualitative Study with Adults 50+ in the US and Japan

Many people, particularly older adults, are negatively affected by social isolation and loneliness. Robots can facilitate social interaction between persons. In this on-going study, we interview middle and older adults in the US (
$n=20$
) and Japan (
$n=4$
) regarding their opinions of socially facilitative robots and how they want robots to assist in their social lives. Participants' desires for robots included robots that could act as an embodied avatar, teleconferencing robots that would be mobile and hands-free, and automated management of their social schedule. Some participants were opposed to the idea of socially facilitative robots, expressed concern regarding robot involvement in human social life, felt that robots were incapable of promoting social interactions between humans, or felt that robots were only for the very elderly and disabled and could not currently assist them. Emerging differences include that thus far, only US participants expressed a desire for pet robots or organizational robots, and all four current Japanese participants expressed the belief that robots were for the very elderly and disabled.