Amazon Echo Show as a Multimodal Human-to-Human Care Support Tool within Self-Isolating Older UK Households

2022. Ewan Soubutts, Amid Ayobi, Rachel Eardley, Roisin McNaney, Kirsten Cater & Aisling O'Kane
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.

Abstract

Although the use of voice assistants to support older adults at home shows promise, little is known about how the next generation of these devices, which also include displays, can support health and care needs. This question has become more important during COVID-19, when issues of social isolation for older adults have been exacerbated. During social distancing measures in the UK, eleven older adult households (16 participants) were interviewed before receiving an Amazon Echo Show, shortly after receiving it, and after three months of use. We identify ways in which this multi-modal device is used by people in social isolation to support social, care, and information needs in the home. We frame these findings within the growing research area of smart homes for health and care, and provide implications for the adoption, use and acceptance of these devices to support aging in place together.

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Citation

Soubutts, E., Ayobi, A., Eardley, R., McNaney, R., Cater, K., & O'Kane, A. A. (2022 , nov). Amazon echo show as a multimodal human-to-human care support tool within self-isolating older uk households. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., 6(CSCW2). URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3555193, doi:10.1145/3555193

BibTeX

@article{10.1145/3555193,
author = {Soubutts, Ewan and Ayobi, Amid and Eardley, Rachel and McNaney, Roisin and Cater, Kirsten and O'Kane, Aisling Ann},
title = {Amazon Echo Show as a Multimodal Human-to-Human Care Support Tool within Self-Isolating Older UK Households},
year = {2022},
issue_date = {November 2022},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
volume = {6},
number = {CSCW2},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3555193},
doi = {10.1145/3555193},
abstract = {Although the use of voice assistants to support older adults at home shows promise, little is known about how the next generation of these devices, which also include displays, can support health and care needs. This question has become more important during COVID-19, when issues of social isolation for older adults have been exacerbated. During social distancing measures in the UK, eleven older adult households (16 participants) were interviewed before receiving an Amazon Echo Show, shortly after receiving it, and after three months of use. We identify ways in which this multi-modal device is used by people in social isolation to support social, care, and information needs in the home. We frame these findings within the growing research area of smart homes for health and care, and provide implications for the adoption, use and acceptance of these devices to support aging in place together.},
journal = {Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.},
month = {nov},
articleno = {302},
numpages = {31},
keywords = {automation, care, health, search, smart speakers, social facilitation, social isolation, social presence}
}