Is a Robot Better than Video for Initiating Remote Social Connections Among Children?

To investigate how children interact differently when interactions are mediated with screen-based video communication versus a robot-mediated communication, we conducted a study with elementary students in Korea, comparing the use of both technologies to introduce classroom students with peer-aged individuals in America. Our findings show that the classroom children showed more positive emotion during certain tasks and exhibited more interest to remote participants in the context of robot mediated communication than with video-mediated communication. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4.3 Communications Applications: Computer conferencing,teleconferencing, and videoconferencingGeneral TermsHuman Factors, Languages.