A Proposal for Using Kawaii Companion Robots to Support Student Mental Health

In this position paper, we provide a summary of the college student mental health crisis and the increased magnitude of this crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, we provide examples of kawaii companion robots that are gaining popularity, especially in Japan, and we summarize the authors'...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2022 10th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW) pp. 1 - 4
Main Authors Berque, Dave, Chiba, Hiroko
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 18.10.2022
Subjects
Affective computing
companion robots
Conferences
COVID-19
kawaii
Mental health
Pandemics
Proposals
Robots
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Summary:In this position paper, we provide a summary of the college student mental health crisis and the increased magnitude of this crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, we provide examples of kawaii companion robots that are gaining popularity, especially in Japan, and we summarize the authors' experiences with a kawaii companion robot and the affective properties of the robot. Finally, we explain why we believe kawaii companion robots may be useful for addressing the student mental health crisis in the future and propose this as a direction for future study.
DOI:10.1109/ACIIW57231.2022.10086008