Is a robot better than video for initiating remote social connections among children?

Abstract

To investigate how children interact differently when interactions are mediated with screen-based video communication versus a robot-mediated communication, we conducted a study with elementary students in Korea, comparing the use of both technologies to introduce classroom students with peer-aged individuals in America. Our findings show that the classroom children showed more positive emotion during certain tasks and exhibited more interest to remote participants in the context of robot-mediated communication than with video-mediated communication.