Children's Acceptance of a Domestic Social Robot: How It Evolves over Time

Little is known about children's long-term acceptance of social robots; whether different types of users exist; and what reasons children have not to use a robot. Moreover, the literature is inconclusive about how the measurement of children's robot acceptance (i.e., self-report or observational) affects the findings. We relied on both self-report and observational data from a six-wave panel study among 321 children aged eight to nine, who were given a Cozmo robot to play with at home over the course of eight weeks. Children's robot acceptance decreased over time, with the strongest drop after two to four weeks. Children rarely rejected the robot (i.e., they did not stop using it already prior to actual adoption). They rather discontinued its use after initial adoption or alternated between using and not using the robot. The competition of other toys and lacking motivation to play with Cozmo emerged as strongest reasons for not using the robot. Self-report measures captured patterns of robot acceptance well but seemed suboptimal for precise assessments of robot use.