Luo, R.L.; Zhang, T.X.Y.; Chen, D.H.-C.; Hoorn, J.F.; Huang, I.S. Social Robots Outdo the Not-So-Social Media for Self-Disclosure: Safe Machines Preferred to Unsafe Humans? Robotics 2022, 11, 92, doi:10.3390/robotics11050092.
Luo, R.L.; Zhang, T.X.Y.; Chen, D.H.-C.; Hoorn, J.F.; Huang, I.S. Social Robots Outdo the Not-So-Social Media for Self-Disclosure: Safe Machines Preferred to Unsafe Humans? Robotics 2022, 11, 92, doi:10.3390/robotics11050092.
Luo, R.L.; Zhang, T.X.Y.; Chen, D.H.-C.; Hoorn, J.F.; Huang, I.S. Social Robots Outdo the Not-So-Social Media for Self-Disclosure: Safe Machines Preferred to Unsafe Humans? Robotics 2022, 11, 92, doi:10.3390/robotics11050092.
Luo, R.L.; Zhang, T.X.Y.; Chen, D.H.-C.; Hoorn, J.F.; Huang, I.S. Social Robots Outdo the Not-So-Social Media for Self-Disclosure: Safe Machines Preferred to Unsafe Humans? Robotics 2022, 11, 92, doi:10.3390/robotics11050092.
Abstract
COVID-19 may not be a ‘youth disease’ but nevertheless impacts the life of young people dramatically, loneliness and negative mood being an unexpected additional pandemic. Many young people rely on social media for their feeling of connectedness with others. However, social media are suggested to have many negative effects on people’s anxiety. Instead of self-disclosing to others, design may develop alternatives to employ social robots for self-disclosure. In a follow-up on Duan et al. (2021), we report on a lab experiment of self-disclosing negative emotions to a social-media group as compared to writing a conventional diary journal or to talk to an AI-driven social robot after negative mood induction (i.e. viewing shocking earthquake footage). Participants benefitted the most from talking to a robot rather than from writing a journal page or sharing their feelings on social media. Self-disclosure on social media or writing a journal page did not differ significantly. In the design of interventions for mental well-being, human helpers thus far took center stage. Based on our results, we propose design alternatives for an empathic smart-home, featuring social robots and chatbots for alleviating stress and anxiety: a social-media interference chatbot, smart watch plus speaker, and a mirror for self-reflection.
Keywords
social media; social robots; negative mood; self-disclosure; intervention design; anthropomorphic design
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Accounting and Taxation
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
