Paper Info
Title
Companionship with smart home devices: The impact of social connectedness and interaction types on perceived social support and companionship in smart homes.
Abstract
A home is not only a technical space according to each individual's role but also a social space where family members interact with each other. However, the number of single-person households has recently shown an exponential increase. At the same time, the smart home technology has been growing in order to provide at-home rest to individuals. In this situation, a home's role as a social space is diluted, and many people cannot receive the social support they need at home. In this study, we introduce the concept of social connectedness for the interaction between users and smart home devices. It can be divided into two types. One is the Inner Social Connectedness (ISC) that is generated through connections between the user and the devices in their smart home. The other is the Outer Social Connectedness (OSC) that is generated through connections between the user and the smart home devices in other people's houses. We also introduce two types of interaction. One is the unmediated interaction, in which users interact with each device and the individual device reveals its presence. The other one is the mediated interaction, in which users interact with a single agent that represents various smart home devices. In order to investigate the impact of both inner/outer social connectedness and mediated/unmediated interaction types, we conducted a controlled experiment using a prototype smart home system. The results indicate that both types of social connectedness increase the user's perceived social support. In terms of the effects of social connectedness and each integration type, unmediated interaction was found to be more effective with inner social connectedness, whereas mediated interaction was more effective with outer social connectedness. Furthermore, perceived social support increased companionship with smart home devices. The findings of this study will help design interaction methods between users and objects in smart homes in the future.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1016/j.chb.2017.06.031
Computers in Human Behavior
Keywords
Field
DocType
Social connectedness,Smart home,Mediated interaction,Unmediated interaction,Social support,Companionship
Social psychology,Social connectedness,Interpersonal relationship,Psychology,Home automation,Social space,Controlled experiment,Social support
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
75
0747-5632
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.35
11
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Byounggwan Lee110.35
Ohkyun Kwon210.35
Inseong Lee334321.78
Jinwoo Kim41918168.52