Automation, wellbeing and Digital Voice Assistants: Older people and Google devices

Abstract

Digital Voice Assistants (DVAs) like Google Home provide automated news, media and other content directly into the home. In this article, we outline how Google Home’s content delivery can support the wellbeing and independence of older people. We argue that automated media provided by DVAs enrols older people in a dialectic relationship with the automated content and feminised conversation they deliver, uniquely performed within people’s own everyday life circumstances. We demonstrate this by drawing on ethnographic insights generated during a trial of smart home technologies with older Australian households who are ‘ageing in place’ in regional New South Wales. For most participants, the trial was their first encounter with DVAs and the modes of media and content delivery including for music, news, weather, trivia, jokes, facts and images. While DVAs bring new experiences via content, communication and companionship, they are also subverted, ignored or transformed as people improvise to make them ‘fit’ within their homes and lives. These dynamics underpin how DVAs, automated content delivery and user’s interactions can support people’s sense of wellness and their independent daily practices at home.

Especificação de Sistema de Recomendação Educacional de Incentivo as Interações em Plataforma Social de Aprendizagem

“…A inserção dos sujeitos no processo de especificação permitiu experiências antecipatórias, possibilitando aos usuários compreenderem em alto nível como a abordagem funciona, e aos pesquisadores a percepção se a proposta atende ao esperado. Por isso, o processo de design do adotado, buscou o entendimento das necessidades dos sujeitos antes da proposta de solução, refletindo não se tratar apenas de realizar recomendação que forneça estímulo-resposta, mas se volte para onde o impacto é maior (LINDGREN et al, 2020) (DUQUE et al, 2021. Sem separar o laboratório de produção do próprio ambiente real de aplicável (PINK et al, 2015), as técnicas e procedimentos empregados corresponderam a um paradigma que legitima a concepção de tecnologias voltado ao contexto educacional com o envolvendo dos principais atores (estudantes e professores).…”

Co-Presence and Contingency: Comics as a Methodological Innovation in Researching Automated Futures

“…However, everyday engagement with these environments needs to be locality-based and is therefore hard to replicate in people’s homes. Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new everyday context emerged, where a layer of our lives, and by necessity research methods, shifted online, generating methodological innovation in research focused on everyday technology futures, including adapted and new video-based and workshop methods (Duque et al, 2021; Pink, 2021a; Pink et al, 2022; Watson et al, 2021). In this article, we contribute to this growing suite of methods for accessing futures ethnographically through a comic strip methodology, which we argue offers a foundation for establishing an open-ended and accessible form of ethnographic co-presence in futures research.…”

“Isn't this Marvelous”

“…Assurance of security and control are other key needs for older people when using voice assistants [34]. Some studies have highlighted how older people relate to and anthropomorphize voice assistants, which can provide companionship for older adults [59], as we have discussed elsewhere [14].…”

“…Beyond HCI, research has explored the intersections between ageing in place, smart technologies, and health and wellbeing outcomes for older people [e.g. 10,14,28,46]. Carnemolla [7] examines the connections between the Internet of Things (IoT), the built environment and caregiving in the context of ageing in place, arguing that IoT devices can support interventions that enable older adults to remain independent, healthy and safe, despite identifying signifcant potential drawbacks to smart technology interventions, including difculty of use, reluctance to use, and ongoing concerns around maintenance.…”