Older adults and robot literacy

Abstract

Robots have acquired roles in the provision of information and services. Older adults may interact with robots in many settings, including their homes and public places and, for example, care settings in or outside their homes. In older adults’ care, robots are used to assist their daily tasks, such as cleaning, eating, dressing, bathing, social interaction, entertainment, and medication taking. Consequently, older adults are required to have robot literacy, which has been suggested as a subset of media literacy. However, up to date, only a few researchers have defined robot literacy. In this conceptual article, we first discuss robots in the everyday lives of older adults. Second, drawing on previous studies on media literacies, digital competences, human-robot interaction and other relevant research fields, we define robot literacy as a multidimensional set of skills comprising the following seven skill dimensions: 1) awareness of robots; 2) interaction with robots; 3) understanding and evaluation of the information provided by robots; 4) understanding the data security and privacy of robots; 5) programming of robots; 6) ethical reflection; and 7) providing and receiving social support. Finally, we discuss the applicability of the concept of robot literacy and the limitations of our definition of the concept.