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partners, who came to think of ways of designing social
robots for the community. The social robot in a community
space impacted the older adults' social connectedness, creating ripples within the normal group interactions, as was
also observed in [19]. By building on these aspects and
understanding how relationships are affected by social
robots, researchers can leverage these effects for responsible
design and adoption of such robots by older adults.
Conclusions
Overall, this article demonstrates how social robots can be
a conversation-facilitating tool, promoting group-level
engagement and interaction and increasing in-person
social connectedness in an older-adult population. The
significant engagement and social bonding effects that
participants experienced with the social robot over three
weeks demonstrate there is promise in the use of a social
robot to older adults' seniors' social closeness, and, thereby, their overall health and well-being. The study also illuminated some promising areas for development in future
research about social robots and other forms of new technology with the older adult population.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the joint Information and Communication Technology (ICT) R&D program of the Ministry
of Science, ICT and Future Planning and Institute for Information and Communication Technology Promotion of
Republic of Korea under grant 2017-0-00162, "Development
of Human-Care Robot Technology for Aging Society."
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Anastasia K. Ostrowski, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge. Email: akostrow@media.mit.edu.
Daniella DiPaola, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge. Email: dipaola@mit.edu.
Erin Partridge, Elder Care Alliance, Alameda, California.
Email: epartridge@eldercarealliance.org.
Hae Won Park, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Email: haewon@media.mit.edu.
Cynthia Breazeal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Email: cynthiab@media.mit.edu.
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