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How Virtual Personal Assistants Influence Children’s Communication

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Knowledge in the Information Society (PCSF 2020, CSIS 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 184))

Abstract

Virtual Personal Assistants (VPA) are becoming an integral part of the lives of modern children. Its role extends far beyond performing the utilitarian functions of searching for information and working with applications. A child is interested in the VPA personality and the ability to conduct a small talk with it. To achieve an adequate communicative response of VPA children are ready to change their speech behavior. Using content analysis method, the article presents the analysis of video conversations of children with a VPA known as Alice. The authors identified a “corridor” of adequate communication that lies between “adult” responses, especially humorous ones that are unclear to the child most often due to different cultural backgrounds, and children’s fantasies and realities that are poorly handled by the VPA. It was found that the VPA’s responses are particularly inconsistent when it is a question of whether to maintain faith in magic, or strictly adhere to the facts. In particular, the problem appears to be caused by the “personality” of the VPA, which is interpreted by children anthropomorphically. A separate problem is the child’s assimilation of patterns of command communication with the VPA, disregard for polite words and an easy transition to scolding.

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Acknowledgement

This paper was financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on the program to improve the competitiveness of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) among the world’s leading research and education centers in 2016–2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU), Polytechnicheskaya, 29, 195251, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

    Daria Bylieva, Victoria Lobatyuk & Tatiana Nam

  2. Near East University, 2417, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Zafer Bekirogullari

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  1. Daria Bylieva
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  2. Zafer Bekirogullari
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  3. Victoria Lobatyuk
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  4. Tatiana Nam
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Correspondence to Daria Bylieva .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnique, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Daria Bylieva

  2. Institut für Philosophie, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Alfred Nordmann

  3. Department of Social Sciences, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnique, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olga Shipunova

  4. Department of High School of Cyberphysical Systems and Control, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnique, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Violetta Volkova

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Bylieva, D., Bekirogullari, Z., Lobatyuk, V., Nam, T. (2021). How Virtual Personal Assistants Influence Children’s Communication. In: Bylieva, D., Nordmann, A., Shipunova, O., Volkova, V. (eds) Knowledge in the Information Society. PCSF CSIS 2020 2020. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 184. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65857-1_12

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