Hey Robot, Can You Help Me Feel Less Lonely?: An Explorative Study to Examine the Potential of Using Social Robots to Alleviate Loneliness in Young Adults

An often-forgotten group of people which is heavily affected by loneliness are young adults. The perceived social isolation often stems from attachment insecurities and social skill deficiencies. Since robots can function as social interaction partners who exert less social pressure and display less social complexity, they may pose a promising approach to alleviate this problematic situation. The goal would not be to replace human interaction partners, but to diminish acute loneliness and accompanying detrimental effects and to function as social skills coach and practice interaction partner. To explore the potential of this approach, a preregistered quantitative online study (N = 150) incorporating a video-based interaction with a social robot and qualitative elements was conducted. First results show that young adults report less state loneliness after interacting with the robot than before. Technically affine people evaluate the robot's sociability as well as the interaction with it more positively, people with a general negative attitude towards robots less positively. Furthermore, the more trait loneliness people report to experience, the less sociable they perceive the robot.