Search for: All records

Abstract ObjectiveThis Emerging Ideas report explores families' (parents and their children) uses and gratification for ChatGPT. BackgroundGenerative artificial intelligence–based conversational agents, such as ChatGPT, can be used to accomplish a variety of tasks, yet little is known about how and why parents and their children may use these technologies. MethodsWe conducted semistructured qualitative and exploratory interviews with 12 U.S.‐based families that had experience sharing a ChatGPT account. Families were recruited using social media advertisements, and at least one child and one parent joined the interview. We asked families about what they used ChatGPT for and why they used the platform. ResultsFamilies reported four main motivators for using ChatGPT: (a) information seeking, (b) enhancing productivity, (c) entertainment, and (d) social bonding. Potential barriers to use included concerns about (a) ChatGPT's credibility and capabilities, (b) being less familiar with using ChatGPT, (c) the platform's ethical implications, and (d) possible privacy risks. ConclusionFamilies use ChatGPT for various purposes, but their uses and gratifications sometimes may differ depending on their perceptions of and experiences with the platform. ImplicationsOur findings suggest that with some improvements, ChatGPT has the potential to be a useful tool for both individual and shared use in families. 

Family-centered integration is critical for the success of in-home educational robots. 

Reading fluency is a vital building block for developing literacy, yet the best way to practice fluency—reading aloud—can cause anxiety severe enough to inhibit literacy development in ways that can have an adverse effect on students through adulthood. One promising intervention to mitigate oral reading anxiety is to have children read aloud to a robot. Although observations in prior work have suggested that people likely feel more comfortable in the presence of a robot instead of a human, few studies have empirically demonstrated that people feel less anxious performing in front of a robot compared with a human or used objective physiological indicators to identify decreased anxiety. To investigate whether a robotic reading companion could reduce reading anxiety felt by children, we conducted a within-subjects study where children aged 8 to 11 years (n = 52) read aloud to a human and a robot individually while being monitored for physiological responses associated with anxiety. We found that children exhibited fewer physiological indicators of anxiety, specifically vocal jitter and heart rate variability, when reading to the robot compared with reading to a person. This paper provides strong evidence that a robot’s presence has an effect on the anxiety a person experiences while doing a task, offering justification for the use of robots in a wide-reaching array of social interactions that may be anxiety inducing. 

Demystifying on-device AI on Instagram and TikTok.