Voice Assistant Use in Long-Term Care

Research on voice assistants has primarily studied how people use them for informational needs, music requests, and to control electronic devices (e.g., IoT). Recent research suggests people such as older adults want to use them to address social and relational needs, but lacks empirical evidence to show how older adults are currently engaging in these behaviors. In this paper, we use a machine learning approach to analyze more than 600,000 queries that 456 older adults in assisted living communities made to Amazon Alexa devices over two years, classifying how older adults use voice assistants for social well-being purposes. We present empirical evidence showing how older adults engage in three primary relational behaviors with Alexa - 1) asking personal questions to "get to know" the assistant, 2) asking for advice and 3) engaging with the voice assistant to alleviate stress. We use these findings to discuss ethical implications of voice assistant use in long-term care settings.