Impertinent mobiles - Effects of politeness and impoliteness in human-smartphone interaction

This study aims to reveal first insights into human-smartphone interaction by focusing on the effects of smart phones either speaking politely or impolitely. Following the idea of media equation and the corresponding paradigm computers as social actors (CASA), smartphones are conceptualized as social agents suggested to elicit social responses in their human users (Nass, Steuer, & Tauber, 1994). In a laboratory experiment, (n = 85) participants interacted with a talking phone, which replied to them either politely or impolitely. Participants evaluated this phone twice, before and after they had received the phone's feedback. ANOVA revealed polite phones to be evaluated significantly better than impolite phones. Comparing evaluations before and after the feedback showed that polite phones were revaluated regarding friendliness but not regarding competence. In contrast, the second evaluation of impolite phones deteriorated on both dimensions: friendliness and competence. Furthermore, results were not affected by ownership (subject's own vs. not subject's own phone). However, the gender of the phone (female vs. male voice) impacted the evaluation: impolite male phones were evaluated less positively regarding their competence, impolite female phones were not. Transferring the CASA paradigm to talking smartphones is considered as a heuristically fruitful approach to further analyze humans interacting with phones as well as with speech assistants in general. Results are discussed as an empirical contribution of conceptualizing smartphones as social actors (SASA), activating social norms originally exclusive for human-human interactions.