Ice-Breakers, Turn-Takers and Fun-Makers: Exploring Robots for Groups with Teenagers

-- Successful, enjoyable group interactions are important in public and personal contexts, especially for teenagers whose peer groups are important for self-identity and self-esteem. Social robots seemingly have the potential to positively shape group interactions, but it seems difficult to effect such impact by designing robot behaviors solely based on related (human interaction) literature. In this article, we take a user-centered approach to explore how teenagers envisage a social robot "group assistant". We engaged 16 teenagers in focus groups, interviews, and robot testing to capture their views and reflections about robots for groups. Over the course of a two-week summer school, participants co-designed the action space for such a robot and experienced working with/wizarding it for 10+ hours. This experience further altered and deepened their insights into using robots as group assistants. We report results regarding teenagers' views on the applicability and use of a robot group assistant, how these expectations evolved throughout the study, and their repeat interactions with the robot. Our results indicate that each group moves on a spectrum of need for the robot, reflected in use of the robot more (or less) for ice-breaking, turn-taking, and fun-making as the situation demanded. Interacting in groups is an essential element of everyday human life. Especially for teenagers, peer groups are important for self-identity and self-esteem [1]. Essential to a group's function and the behaviour of its members are the group dynamics, such as cohesion. For example, among teenagers, higher cohesion has been found to lead to more generalist trust and more prosocial behaviours [2].