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In this study, 5 focus groups with 60 older participants in rural China revealed their perceptions of social robots, concerns about the technology, and the types of social robots they were likely to accept. The participants cited multiple technological, discomfort, privacy, safety, and financial fraud concerns. They struggled to define robots as machines, humans, or something else but preferred small-sized, animal-shaped, or young female-gendered human-like robots. Their interconnected perceptions, concerns, and preferences illuminate a resource-poor group\u2019s struggles, imaginations, hopes, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities when a new social and technological actor is embedded in their social worlds, reflecting how people understand social robots in relation to themselves and themselves in relation to social robots. Our study findings contribute to understanding social robots\u2019 subjectivities and ways to design culturally and socially acceptable robots.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/14614448231220346","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,10]],"date-time":"2024-01-10T06:59:05Z","timestamp":1704869945000},"page":"3146-3175","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["But is it for us? 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