User Experiences of Social Support From Companion Chatbots in Everyday Contexts: Thematic Analysis
By Vivian P. Ta, Caroline Griffith, Carolynn Boatfield, Xinyu Wang, Maria Civitello, Haley Bader, Esther DeCero, Alexia Loggarakis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2020
409 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Background Previous research suggests that artificial agents may be a promising source of social support for humans. However, the bulk of this research has been conducted in the context of social support interventions that specifically address stressful situations or health improvements. Little research has examined social support received from artificial agents in everyday contexts. Objective Considering that social support manifests in not only crises but also everyday situations and that everyday social support forms the basis of support received during more stressful events, we aimed to investigate the types of everyday social support that can be received from artificial agents. Methods In Study 1, we examined publicly available user reviews (N=1854) of Replika, a popular companion chatbot. In Study 2, a sample (n=66) of Replika users provided detailed open-ended responses regarding their experiences of using Replika. We conducted thematic analysis on both datasets to gain insight into the kind of everyday social support that users receive through interactions with Replika. Results Replika provides some level of companionship that can help curtail loneliness, provide a “safe space” in which users can discuss any topic without the fear of judgment or retaliation, increase positive affect through uplifting and nurturing messages, and provide helpful information/advice when normal sources of informational support are not available. Conclusions Artificial agents may be a promising source of everyday social support, particularly companionship, emotional, informational, and appraisal support, but not as tangible support. Future studies are needed to determine who might benefit from these types of everyday social support the most and why. These results could potentially be used to help address global health issues or other crises early on in everyday situations before they potentially manifest into larger issues.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a8a47b1b1d571699fcbe6519e3dc806e6cd66508
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Citations in the corpus
- An Overview of Chatbot-Based Mobile Mental Health Apps: Insights From App Description and User Reviews (2022, neutral): “Several well-known chatbots such as Wysa [34], Woebot [47], Replika [51], Youper [52], and Tess [53] were discussed in prior literature.”
- My Chatbot Companion - a Study of Human-Chatbot Relationships (2021, methodology): “This finding is in line with those of Ta et al. (2020) and indicates substantial positive benefits from an HCR. Interestingly, one of the perceived negative issues reported by the participants regarding their relationship with Replika is what they see as a social stigma in regard to HCRs.”
- Too human and not human enough: A grounded theory analysis of mental health harms from emotional dependence on the social chatbot Replika (2022, background): “Prior research has primarily documented mental health benefits from Replika use, with some suggestion of the possibility for dependence (Skjuve et al., 2021; Ta et al., 2020; Xie and Pentina, 2022).”