Alexa, tell me more – about new best friends, the advantage of hands-free operation and life-long learning

Abstract

The demographic change and the digital transformation are two phenomena that change our society. In the future, the demographic change will lead to an increasing proportion of older people. Elderly people often feel lonely and cannot fully take part in social life. Our research explores how to increase the participation of elderly people in social activities and how to reduce loneliness with the help of digital solutions. For this purpose, we equipped a group of elderly people living in the same neighborhood with Amazon Echo Show devices. This experience report presents our evaluation strategy and results. We present the expectations of the participants, how they used the device, and the results regarding user acceptance. It turned out that the device is easy to use and became a beloved member of the household, and that the participants felt less lonely and more socially interconnected.