Hey Alexa! A Magic Spell of Social Glue?: Sharing a Smart Voice Assistant Speaker and Its Impact on Users’ Perception of Group Harmony

Unlike most other computing devices that are known to isolate their users, Smart Voice Assistant Speaker (SVAS) appears to improve the perception of social cohesion (i.e., Group Harmony) among its co-users. We hypothesize that the social cues emanated from the continued, and habituated, use of SVAS develop the “illusion of intimacy” which, in turn, ripples through the entire group, and help fulfill the need for social integration. The data...