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 108 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：老年人社交孤立问题日益严峻，因交流机会减少与家庭关系弱化对心理健康产生负面影响。本研究提出一种通过共享日常生活信息来促进老年人与代理之间关系及其与孙辈关系的对话代理。该代理运行于聊天机器人平台，与老年人及其孙辈进行日常对话，通过交换双方收集的信息增强对话参与度与社会联结。我们开展了为期十天的实证实验，涉及108组祖孙配对。结果表明，老年人更愿意与共享孙辈信息的代理互动，祖孙之间的心理联结得到加强。此外，每日与代理的互动与老年人及其孙辈焦虑水平的降低相关。这些发现表明，共享个人信息的对话代理可通过同时提供对话机会与促进家庭联结，成为支持老年人的有效途径。总体而言，本研究为设计能有效应对老年人社交孤立问题的对话代理提供了重要见解。