1. Introduction
The intense social isolation and distancing measures that
we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic are
anticipated to have negative consequences in terms of increased
loneliness [
1
]. Loneliness is defined as the perceived gap
between desired and actual social relationships and
associated with mental health issues such as depression and
physical health problems [
2
]. Young adults are particularly
susceptible to loneliness, a vulnerability exacerbated by the
pandemic, which emphasizes the need to address this issue
urgently [
3, 1
] . Considering that young adults are often
tech-savvy and engaged, interactive technologies that
offer features akin to a human interaction partner may be
used to alleviate acute loneliness and further train social
skills to diminish general loneliness. For instance,
previous studies explored the potential of using a social robot
to aid young adults facing loneliness as a companion or
a social skills coach [
4, 5, 6
] . However, there is evidence
suggesting that particularly individuals sufering from
severe loneliness perceive social technologies and their efects
diferently – mostly more negatively (e.g., social robots [
5
],
video call technologies [
7
], social media [
8
]). This could
be because they do not experience the same level of social
need satisfaction by using these technologies as others do
[
9
]. Even worse, using these technologies and not receiving
the need satisfaction they are seeking, may even amplify
their feelings of loneliness as their social need
dissatisfaction becomes more salient. The perception of interactive
technologies by lonely young adults is a multifaceted issue
that requires a nuanced understanding of how these
technologies can do both, alleviate and exacerbate feelings of
loneliness. The current study therefore employs an
experimental study design to deepen our understanding of what
role diferent types of loneliness (state and general) play
in how young adults perceive interactive technologies that
vary regarding their human-likeness.
1.1. Perception of Interactive Technologies and Loneliness
Numerous studies show that interactive technologies such
as robots, virtual agents, voice assistants, and chatbots
trigger social reactions in people as soon as they fulfill a few
conditions (interactivity, natural language, fulfilling a
social role; [
10, 11, 12, 13
]). Since interactive technologies are
able to take over social roles and are frequently perceived
and treated as social interaction partners, they are often
proposed to be used to satisfy social needs – particularly
for individuals sufering from loneliness [
4
]. When
experiencing a dissatisfying social need state (e.g., “I feel lonely”),
individuals are motivated to take action to resolve it (e.g.,
“I will talk to a friend”; [
14
]). However, if this action is not
able to satisfy the need, the individual is still experiencing
the need dissatisfaction and the motivation to take action to
resolve it [
9
]. For instance, young adults often turn to social
media platforms as a means of seeking connection and
alleviating feelings of isolation. Paradoxically, intensive social
media use was found to amplify their sense of loneliness
[
15, 16
]. This two-sided nature of the relationship between
technology and loneliness underlines the complexity of its
impact on young adults. The question arises what factors
determine whether interactive technologies can satisfy
social needs of lonely young adults. With this aim in mind, it
needs to be further investigated how lonely young adults
perceive interactive technologies in general and how this is
afected by the appearance and behavior of the technologies.
There is extensive research on how artificial entities’
appearance and behavior are generally perceived by their human
interaction partners (e.g., [
17, 18, 19, 20, 21
] . In this study,
however, the influences of current and general loneliness in
young adults are specifically taken into account.
In situations where social needs are not satisfied and human
interaction partners are not available, people may turn to
interactive technologies as an alternative strategy. The
results of various studies suggest that social robots (e.g., Aibo,
1.1.1. State Loneliness
∗Corresponding author.
CEUR
ceur-ws.org
Paro, Vector) are quite efective in reducing current feelings
of loneliness [
22
]. Also voice assistants can be perceived
as companions that may improve social connectedness and
alleviate loneliness [
23
]. Previous research suggest that
when feelings of loneliness are activated, individuals tend
to anthropomorphize interactive technologies more strongly
[
24, 25
] . For instance, they reported to feel a stronger social
presence than other people while interacting with social
robots [
26
]. This could be the case because socially
dissatisifed individuals are more sensitive to social cues [
27
].
Another explanation is that Anthropomorphism helps to fulfill
social needs by ofering a humanlike interaction with
nonhuman entity [
28
]. State loneliness further seems to result
in a more positive evaluation of a technological interaction
partner, for instance regarding its warmth, friendliness, and
sociability [
25
]. We therefore hypothesize:
H1: Individual’s state loneliness positively afects an
interactive technology’s a) perceived sociability, b) perceived
competence, and c) overall evaluation. It is assumed that higher
human-likeness of interactive technologies leads to more
positive efects in social settings. For instance, a robot’s
more human-like appearance led to a stronger perception
of mind [
8
]. Human-likeness in appearance also increases
social conversation chances: participants were observed
to speak and respond more to a social robot than a voice
assistant. They further reported to feel more interpersonal
warmth, to enjoy the conversation more, and to feel less
lonely with the social robot than the voice assistant [
29
].
More human-like behavior – in terms of speaking styles –
were also found to result in more positive evaluations of the
technological interaction partners, for instance regarding
warmth and sociability [
30
] . Therefore, we hypothesize:
H2: More human-likeness of an interactive technology’s a)
appearance (social robot vs. voice assistant) and b) behavior
(human-like vs. machine-like communication style) leads
to less state loneliness.
1.2. General Loneliness
As outlined before, previous research reports a link between
state loneliness and anthropomorphizing tendencies. In
contrast to state loneliness which describes a temporary,
short-term experience of feeling alone that can be relieved
once the situational factors causing it are resolved,
general or chronic loneliness is defined as a prolonged and
persistent state of feeling alone, even when surrounded by
others [
31
]. People with longer lasting loneliness, however,
were found to attribute less human traits to an interactive
technology (i.e., humble, broadminded, polite), which may
discourage them from developing anthropomorphic
inferences (e.g., social response, warmth, competence) [
32, 33
].
In a diferent study, a robot that was proposed to alleviate
loneliness by functioning as companion or as social skill
coach was evaluated as less socially attractive the higher
the raters’ self-reported general loneliness [
5
]. There have
been similar observations by researchers in the context of
computer-mediated communication: During the pandemic,
people reported to feel even more unsatisfied in terms of
social needs after interacting with others using video call
technologies [
7
]. Also social media is frequently found to
have more negative efects the more lonely the users report
to be [
16
]. Apparently, longer-lasting general loneliness
leads to more negative reactions towards social
technologies. Thus, a currently lonely person may be inclined to
anthropomorphize interactive technologies and experience
a positive impact from interacting with them, but only if
their level of loneliness is not on a generally high level.
Therefore, we assume that people who are more strongly
afected by general loneliness react diferently to the
interactive technology’s human-likeness, resulting in a more
negative evaluation compared to people that are less
affected by general loneliness:
H3: General loneliness has a negative efect on an
interactive technology’s a) perceived sociability, b) perceived
competence, and c) overall evaluation.
H4: The positive efect of an interactive technology’s
human-likeness (in behavior and appearance) on their a)
perceived sociability, b) perceived competence, and c)
overall evaluation is diminished by general loneliness.
2.
Method
An experimental lab study with a 2x2 between-subjects
design was conducted. The study was approved by the
local ethics committee. Supplementary study material
(data set, questionnaires, script) can be found online:
https://osf.io/nzs5v/.
2.1. Sample
A power analysis (conducted with the software G*Power;
.80 power, an efects size of f² = 0.15, and .05 alpha error
probability) recommended a minimum of 55 respondents.
In total 105 participated in the study. Two datasets were
excluded due to incompletion, one by request of the
participant, and one due to a suspicious answering pattern. Of
the remaining 101 participants, 37 identified as male and 64
as female. Participants had to be at least 18 years old and
no older than 35 years. On average, participants were M =
23.12 (SD = 3.63) years old. With 88.1 %, most participants
were students. Accordingly, 70.3 % of participants stated to
have a university entrance qualification and 23.8 % to have
a university degree. Participants’ general enthusiasm for
technology was rather high (M = 3.55, SD = 0.56). Of the 50
people in the social robot condition, only ten had
personally interacted with a social robot before, 14 had observed
someone else interact, and 27 had seen a report about social
robots. Of the 51 in the voice assistant condition, 35 had
personally interacted with a voice assistant before, 42 had
observed someone else interact, and 26 had seen a report
about voice assistants.
2.2. Procedure
Following informed consent and reviewing the study
materials, participants answered questions about their
sociodemographic background and technical afinity on a laptop.
The experimenter then introduced either the voice
assistant or the social robot and explained the interactive task
(Figure 1). A cover story was used claiming that the
purpose of the study was to test an interactive technology for
everyday personal use and to improve their speech and
communication skills. The experimenter pretended to start the
interaction program by saying ”start interaction program”
and left the experiment room, allegedly so that the
participants would not feel observed during the interaction. From
an adjacent room, the experimenter was able to control
the voice assistant’s or robot’s outputs by using a webcam
that was installed in the lab to see and hear the participant
2.3. Measurements
2.3.1. Personal Background
Participants reported their sociodemographic information
(age, gender, education, occupation), their previous
experiences with robots or voice assistants (frequency of personal
or observed contact, reception of reports; 0 = “never”; 1 =
“very rarely” to 5 = “very often” [
19
]), and their technical
afinity (TA-EG; [
36
]; 19 items; e.g., “I enjoy trying an
electronic device.”; 1 = “does not apply at all” to 5 = “applies
completely”; = 0.76).
2.3.2. Loneliness
Participants’ state loneliness was measured with the short
scale for measuring loneliness by Hughes et al. ([
37
]; 3
Regression Analysis Results With State Loneliness as Predictor
Criterion
Sociability
Competence
29 and the PROCESS macro v4.3, significance was
determined using the standard < .05 criterium.
3.1. State Loneliness (H1-H2)
To investigate H1 (state loneliness positively afects an
interactive technology’s a) perceived sociability, b) perceived
competence, and c) overall evaluation), three linear
regression analyses were conducted. State loneliness was
always the predictor, the criterion was either the
interactive technology’s perceived sociability, its perceived
competence, or its overall evaluation. The results, presented
in Table 1, show that state loneliness had no significant
efect on any of the interactive technology’s evaluation
measures. Consequently, the hypothesis H1 needs to be
rejected. For H2 (more human-likeness of an interactive
technology’s a) appearance and b) behavior leads to less
state loneliness), an ANOVA was conducted with type of
.07
.03
.06
SE B
0.09
0.08
0.11
F(3, 83)
2.61
0.54
1.80
Regression Analyses With General Loneliness as Predictor
Moderation Analyses With General Loneliness as Moderator and
-.21
-.12
-.16
p
.057
.656
.154
p
.057
.261
.128
Δ 2
.01
.01
.01
2
.04
.02
.03
(1,83)
0.69
0.27
0.21
trace, there was a significant main efect of type of
technolsociability, F(1, 82) = 3.26, p = .074, 2 = .04, and overall
evaluation, F(1, 82) = 3.26, p = .074, 2 = .04, but no significant
efect on perceived competence, F(1, 82) = 0.27, p = .608,
2 = .00. For communication style, the separate univariate
ANOVAs reveal a significant efect on perceived sociability,
F(1, 82) = 12.17, p < .001, 2 = .13, and a marginally significant
efect on overall evaluation, F(1, 82) = 3.76, p = .056, 2 = .04,
but again no significant efect on perceived competence, F(1,
82) = 0.22, p = .641, 2 = .00. Summing up, the additional
analyses regarding the main efects suggest that the more
human-like a technology appears and behaves, the more
sociable and generally positive it is evaluated (see Table 5).
4. Discussion
The aim of the current study was to deepen our
understanding of the roles that state and general loneliness play in
how young adults perceive interactive technologies that
vary regarding their human-likeness. For this purpose, an
experimental lab study with a 2 (robot vs. voice assistant)
x 2 (human-like vs. machine-like communication style)
between-subjects design was conducted.
4.1. State Loneliness
Against our assumptions, the results suggest that state
loneliness has no efect on the interactive technology’s perceived
sociability, competence, or overall evaluation. However, it
needs to be noted that the state loneliness was generally very
low indicating a floor efect. Previous studies that found
an efect of state loneliness on the perception of interactive
technologies employed a setting where state loneliness was
intentionally primed [
25
]. Since we were also interested
in whether the diferences in human-likeness of an
interactive technology’s appearance and behavior influences state
loneliness, we chose to not influence their state loneliness
via a priming task. However, we also did not find any
significant efect of the interactive technology’s appearance
(social robot vs. voice assistant) or behavior (human-like vs.
machine-like communication style) on participants’ state
loneliness. Since state loneliness was low across all groups,
we assume that the interaction with the technology itself
had a positive efect regarding the currently experienced
loneliness. Although previous research found diferences in
perception in respect to an interactive technology’s
humanlikeness, our results are very much in line with fundamental
media psychological research findings. According to the
media equation theory, minimal social cues elicit social
reactions [
13
]. If a technology is interactive, uses natural
language, and fulfills a social role, this is suficient for
humans to react to them socially. All three criteria were met
in our study by both interactive technologies and in both
communication style conditions. Therefore, the interaction
in all conditions might have been suficient to bring all
participants’ state loneliness to a low level (cf. [
5
]). However,
considering the detrimental long-term efects of chronic
loneliness [
1, 2
], the examination of general loneliness as
influencing factor for the perception of interactive
technologies is particularly critical.
4.2. General Loneliness
Against our assumptions, the results show no significant
efect of general loneliness on the evaluation of an
interactive technology. Furthermore, general loneliness was also
not found to diminish the positive efect of an interactive
technology’s human-likeness on how it is evaluated. As
the additional analyses reveal, the more human-likeness
there is in an interactive technology’s appearance and
behavior, the more socially attractive and generally positive
it is rated. With this results we are in line with previous
research that shows that increasing certain aspects of an
interactive technology in terms of human-likeness leads to
positive efects in how they are perceived (e.g., [
8, 30, 29
]
). However, there was a marginally significant efect with
regard to sociability: the higher people’s general loneliness,
the less socially attractive they rate the interactive
technology. Although this finding needs to be interpreted with
caution, it is in line with previous research that people with
unsatisfied social needs evaluate social technologies (to
interact with or through) more negatively [
5, 7, 32, 33, 16
].
In future research, this phenomenon and the mechanisms
behind it need to be further investigated also by focusing
specifically on young adults sufering from severe general
loneliness.
4.3. Limitations and Future Research
Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study no conclusions
regarding causal relationships can be derived. Moreover,
all results are based on self-report which can afect the
accuracy and reliability of the data. Particularly loneliness
is highly stigmatized [
43
] and might therefore be reported
in a biased way. One of the current study’s strengths is that
it employs a real interaction. Future studies should extend
this with several interactions over a longer period and by
considering other interactive technologies such as virtual
agents or chat bots as well. Since state loneliness was rather
low in this study, we recommend to employ techniques to
experimentally manipulate state loneliness if the efect of it
is of central interest (see [
25
] for loneliness priming). In our
study, we were also interested in investigating the efect of
the interactive technologies on individuals’ state loneliness.
To get a clearer picture of the influence of general loneliness,
future studies should consider recruiting two groups – one
with high and one with low levels of general loneliness.
5. Conclusion
If a gap between desired and actual social interactions
persists over a longer period, profound consequences on
physical and mental health are likely [
1, 2
] . To address the
pervasive issue that is largely afecting young adults, it is
crucial to understand the nuances of loneliness, for instance
concerning the perception of potential technology-based
interventions. The findings from our study particularly shed
light on the question how loneliness (state and general)
inlfuences the perception of human-likeness in interactive
technologies that are proposed to alleviate loneliness.
Selfreported state loneliness had little efect on the evaluation
of an interactive technology. However, state loneliness was
generally low in this study, likely because interacting with
any kind of interactive technology that fulfills a few
social check boxes elicits social reactions in humans. Overall,
participants appeared to feel more at ease with an
interactive technology the more it appeared and communicated
in a human-like manner. Since the results further suggest
that general loneliness is linked to a less positive view of
an interactive technology’s social appeal, the underlying
mechanisms causing this efect should be investigated in the
future by including young adults who are severely afected
by general loneliness and its consequences.