Robot Pets and Company: Older Adults and Companion Robots

For an adult Pleo enthusiast, "company" is a question worth taking slowly. What would you want to know about someone's time with a robot dinosaur: whether they accepted him, how often they used him, or how they felt about their social life? Keep those questions separate as you read the research. Start with the dinosaur himself, then look at the wider studies of older adults and companion machines, paying attention to what was measured and what remains uncertain.

From a robot pet to a research question

A 2026 study abstract in Gerontechnology, by S. Baisch and T. Kolling, describes 29 older adults using Pleo in their home environment for two weeks. Participants included people living in the community and nursing home residents. Researchers assessed emotional, social and practical loneliness alongside several aspects of robot acceptance at the beginning and end; participants also recorded their daily use.

Social loneliness, but not emotional loneliness, was associated with initial acceptance of the robot. Most participants' daily use declined slightly over time, with pronounced differences between individuals. Changes in daily use were not related to loneliness levels. Certain acceptance scores were lower at the end, particularly among participants with lower social support.

Read those observations as separate findings. The authors suggest that social robots may not address every aspect of loneliness experienced by older adults. For the collector wondering about company, keep the study's different measures in view rather than treating a usage record or acceptance score as an answer to every question.

Being alone and feeling lonely

The NHS explanation of loneliness describes the experience as personal and subjective. It distinguishes emotional loneliness, involving a missing emotional attachment to someone such as a close friend or partner, from social loneliness, involving a lack of friends to spend time with or share interests. It also describes feeling alone even in a room of familiar people.

That last description is a useful pause before counting the people in a room and calling the question settled. The NHS says some people experience loneliness occasionally, while others experience it all the time. When reading about a robot's role as company, ask which kind of loneliness the authors assessed. In the Pleo findings, the distinction between social and emotional loneliness matters; keep those words attached to the finding instead of shortening it to a claim about loneliness in general.

Company can mean conversation

A 2021 scoping review in Clinical Interventions in Aging included 29 studies of robots and computer agents in older people. Eighteen were observational and 11 were experimental. Twenty-four used robots, four used computer agents, and one used both. The authors described direct companionship and opportunities for social interaction among the approaches represented in the research.

For a robot enthusiast, those are two questions to keep on the table: the experience with the machine, and interaction with other people. Ask which one a study is describing before deciding what its use of "company" means. The review also reported unintended negative social consequences, including sadness when a robot was removed.

The authors called for more robust experimental and mixed methods research, combining validated self-reports, observation and interviews about loneliness. Keep that request alongside the companionship observations when weighing the review; the removal finding belongs in the picture too.

What studies actually measure

A 2026 review in Psychological Medicine examined autonomous conversational agents in older people without cognitive impairment. It included 17 studies with measurements before and after the intervention. Nine used physical robots and eight used nonrobotic agents, including voice assistants, chatbots or agents represented on a screen.

Because high-quality comparison studies were limited, every pooled analysis compared participants with themselves before and after the intervention. Think of that as asking how the same group's scores changed over time. Keep it distinct from asking how their scores compared with a separate group. The authors reported mild to moderate changes toward lower loneliness scores, alongside methodological limitations.

No included study used validated measures of social isolation. The authors also identified a lack of blinded outcome assessment, inconsistent reporting and differences between intervention designs. For someone reading with Pleo in mind, retain the robot and nonrobotic distinction: this review's evidence includes both, rather than a collection of studies all using a dinosaur.

Why setting and time matter

A 2025 meta-analysis in The Gerontologist combined 19 studies involving 1,083 participants. It examined how findings differed with participants' backgrounds and study characteristics. The authors reported greater reductions in loneliness in institutional settings than among people living independently.

For an adult collector reading at home, pause at that difference in setting rather than transferring the finding straight to your own room. Ask who took part and where the interactions happened. The same review did not find that intervention duration significantly influenced the reported effects. Read that alongside its setting finding, rather than assuming that a longer interaction necessarily produced a larger change.

Keep the two-week window of the Pleo study in mind as well. When considering an evening with your own dinosaur, leave the question of a much longer relationship open. Ask for evidence about that timescale rather than stretching a fortnight's observations into an answer about years.

Keeping people in the picture

For everyday social connection, the NHS suggests groups built around shared interests, meeting either in person or online. Its advice is to look for groups focused on something you enjoy or an activity you would like to try. If robots are your interest, use that suggestion as a starting point when considering a shared-interest group.

When you return to the little dinosaur, keep asking specific questions: whose experience, which kind of loneliness, which measure, and over how long? Give acceptance, daily use and loneliness findings their own space. That is a way to stay curious about robot company while respecting the differences and limits the researchers describe.