Self-Disclosure to an IoT Conversational Agent: Effects of Space and User Context on Users’ Willingness to Self-Disclose Personal Information

In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), IoT conversational agents (IoT-CAs) have become the gateways for smart spaces. Users will inevitably self-disclose some types of personal information while interacting with IoT-CAs. In this study, users' willingness to disclose different types of information to IoT-CAs in two smart spaces (living space and workspace) and two user contexts (one user or two users) was investigated. One living space and one workspace were built for users to experience interactions with IoT-CAs. Subsequently, users' willingness to self-disclose six types of personal information was measured. Two experiments were separately conducted for a single user (N = 36) and two users (N = 48). The results indicated that users were most willing to disclose information about their tastes and interests and least willing to disclose money information. Users in the living space were willing to disclose more information than those in the workspace, which was mediated by users' expectations for the reciprocal services of IoT-CAs rather than the awareness of other persons or external factors. Participants had a high private self-awareness in the living space and workspace; their attention was focused on themselves rather than on external factors in smart spaces.