Chatting Bot to Support Communication Practice with Others for Reducing Loneliness

Abstract

The problem of loneliness and isolation is becoming more and more severe in Japan. Unwanted lonelinesshas a negative impact on both body and mind. Face-to-face communication with others is an excellent way toreduce loneliness. Our group believes that if we can provide a system that allows users to experience face-tofacecommunication with others in a simulated way and make it enjoyable, it will reduce loneliness. In thispaper, we propose a framework that enables users to communicate with others using chatbots. We report onthe results of two technology workshops where participants experienced the proposed framework.