Parent reports of children's parasocial relationships with conversational agents: Trusted voices in children's lives

Abstract

With the rise of smart devices in the 21st century, children are increasingly engaged in socially contingent interactions with conversational agents such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. Using an online parent survey, young children's verbal interactions (parasocial interactions) and emotional relationships (parasocial relationships) with conversational agents were examined in a naturalistic study. A total of 92 parents responded to the survey, 70 of whom qualified because they had a conversational agent.