Social isolation among older adults has become a critical concern, as reduced opportunities for conversation and weakened family relationships negatively affect mental health. This study proposes a dialogue agent that supports older adults by fostering both a relationship with the agent and a relationship with their grandchild through sharing everyday information. The agent operates on a chatbot platform and engages in daily conversations with older adults and their grandchildren, exchanging information gathered from each party to enhance conversational engagement and social connection. We conducted a ten-day empirical experiment with 52 grandparent-grandchild pairs. The results suggest that older adults became more willing to interact with the proposed agent, which shared information about their grandchildren, and that the psychological connection between grandparents and grandchildren was strengthened. Furthermore, daily interactions with the agent were associated with reduced anxiety in both older adults and their grandchildren. These findings indicate that a dialogue agent that shares personal information can be an effective approach to supporting older adults by simultaneously offering conversational opportunities and promoting family connectedness. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the design of dialogue agents that effectively address social isolation among older adults.

翻译：老年人社交孤立已成为一个关键问题，因为对话机会减少和家庭关系削弱会对其心理健康产生负面影响。本研究提出一种对话智能体，通过共享日常信息，同时促进用户与智能体之间以及与孙辈之间的关系，从而支持老年人。该智能体运行于聊天机器人平台，与老年人及其孙辈进行日常对话，交换从双方收集的信息，以增强对话参与度和社交联系。我们开展了一项为期十天的实证实验，涉及52对祖孙。结果表明，老年人更愿意与所提出的智能体互动——该智能体分享关于其孙辈的信息，并且祖孙之间的心理联系得到加强。此外，与智能体的每日互动与老年人和孙辈双方的焦虑水平降低有关。这些发现表明，通过共享个人信息，对话智能体可同时提供对话机会并促进家庭联系，从而成为支持老年人的有效方法。总体而言，本研究为设计有效应对老年人社交孤立的对话智能体提供了宝贵见解。