Often, kids do not tell their parents or teachers if something is bothering them, or what they are truly feeling. This is normal psychological behavior for kids to not tell people what they are actually feeling, but it is important that parents know about these feelings so they can help their kids grow into productive members of society. Enter
QIHAN Technology’s Sanbot robot, the robot that will help kids open up about how they are feeling.
A study by Dr. Nancy Darling, Ph.D. in psychology, found that it is very normal for kids and teens to either lie or not disclose the full story. She calls this, “Strategic disclosure.” Dr. Darling has studied children and adolescents from around the world and in her report, she found that the majority have lied or did not disclose the full story to their parents. This is further solidified by a study done by the University of Waterloo finding that 96% of their subjects (ages 4-6) lie to their parents.
But, we have all seen the TV shows and Dr. Phil episodes about how talking about something that is bothering you are quite healthy. In today’s world, people are more and more inclined to speak to automations. In Psychology Today’s
What Would You Rather Tell a Robot Than a Human?, a study found that a human counselor was preferred by
70 percent of participants for talking about
positive experiences, compared to 30 percent who preferred either of the two robots. …However, less than half the participants chose the human counselor for discussing
negative experiences, while the majority chose one of the robots. In MIT Technology Review’s
Growing Up With Alexa, a recent
MIT study looked at how children ages three to 10 interacted with Alexa, Google Home, Cozmo, and a smartphone app called Julie Chatbot. The kids in the study determined that the devices were generally friendly and trustworthy.
In a couple of schools in Shenzhen, China, teachers noticed a few students were not being their normal selves. Teachers are very important in a child’s development. They are with them for a good part of the day, 5 days out of the week. Wanting to help their students, a classroom at the Qianhai Harbor Primary School (with the parents’ permission) decided to try a new method in helping students. Sanbot has been used in 10 schools for these psychology counseling services and for the past two months, Sanbot has been a part of 120 sessions per school.
Students were brought into a room and talked to Sanbot one-on-one. Sanbot presented them with a series of multiple choice questions such as, “A group of friends plan to do something you don’t want to do, you will…; You are worried about a problem, maybe a family or health issue, so you…; Someone gives you $20, so you…” The children were very responsive to Sanbot. Another exercise was a psychiatrist controlled Sanbot remotely and talked to the student through Sanbot. Both methods had success.
Afterwards, the participating students were asked a couple questions about their Sanbot robot experience. First question: Do you like talking to Sanbot?
First-to-fourth grade students: 100%
Fifth-to-sixth grade students: Around 92.7%
Second question: If something bad happened, who would you tell first? Sanbot parent, or teacher?
*First-to-fourth grade students:
Tell the teacher: Around 26%
Tell their parents: Around 33%
Tell Sanbot Elf: Around 41%
However, the older students were less inclined to speak to Sanbot, but still, over 1/4 of the students preferred to talk to Sanbot.
Fifth-to-sixth grade students:
Tell the teacher: Around 24.5%
Tell their parents: Around 24.2%
Tell Sanbot Elf: Around 26.1%
A final survey among all participants (Students, teachers, parents) was done, and the results were very positive for Sanbot:
Students: Overall, there are around 95% students that prefer to have communications with Sanbot Elf intelligent robot thanks to their love of the robot (Cute appearance and games, etc.).
Schools: “Technology plus education” caters to the policy and guideline our government promotes in education industry. The model improves the entire image of technological education of the schools, and relieves the teachers’ working pressure.
Parents: With Sanbot Elf, parents can get faster and more real information and feedback from teachers.
With this positive feedback,
Sanbot is excited to take on more sessions.
Sanbot not only recorded the touch screen interactions, but also recorded videos so teachers and parents could listen to everything that was said, giving them more insight into how their kids are feelings. Some parents had no idea their kids were feeling sad about their home life, or that they were being bullied. Sanbot was able to help everyone involved in helping these kids.
While Sanbot may just be a robot that does not mean that it is just limited to labor/industrial tasks. This robot can be programmed for numerous situations and this example is just one of them.
