Original articleAn Artificially Intelligent Chat Agent That Answers Adolescents' Questions Related to Sex, Drugs, and Alcohol: An Exploratory Study
Section snippets
Procedure and participants
The chatbot was brought to the attention of adolescents by means of flyers, announcements in newspapers and magazines, online channels (e.g., banners on http://nl.msn.com; through World of Alice, http://nl.worldofalice.com), and a text-link in their WLM. Use of the chatbot by adolescents was objectively tracked through server registrations between January and November 2009. This unobtrusive means of data collection is independent of participants' memory, interpretation, and social desirability.
Results
From the pool of potential participants of 3,746 adolescents who were invited to fill out the questionnaire, 1,041 responded to this invitation (response rate: 28%). Of these, 112 were excluded for further analyses, because they gave improbable answers (e.g., age: <8 years; using the Internet: >70 hrs/wk; including data from these participants revealed similar results). This resulted in a final sample of 929 adolescents of whom 737 completed the questionnaire (retention rate: 79%). Because we
Discussion
The chatbot in this study reached a group of adolescents who are not easily accessible: high school attendees, varying in level urbanization and education [23]. Both adolescents with and without previous experience related to sex, drugs, or alcohol, used the chatbot. It is promising, from an informed decision-making point of view that these adolescents consult the chatbot to answer their questions before they gain experience with these potentially risky behaviors. However, female adolescents
Conclusion
The use of chatbots within the field of health promotion has a large potential to reach a varied group of adolescents and to provide them with answers to their questions related to sex, drugs, and alcohol. The chatbot in this study was used intensively and evaluated positively, especially in comparison with information lines and search engines. Nevertheless, further development of stimulating human-like conversation by these chatbots is required.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by a grant from ZonMw: The Netherlands organization for health research and development.
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