SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS ON THE USE OF ROBOT WAITERS IN RESTAURANTS: SENTIMENT AND CONTENT ANALYSIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

In this study, it is aimed to determine the opinions of online user comments written on videos about robot waiters used in restaurants on the YouTube platform. For this purpose, online user comments on the top fifteen most commented YouTube videos about service robots and robot waiters used in restaurants were analyzed through sentiment analysis and content analysis. In sentiment analysis, a Lexicon (NLP)-based approach was used to polarize the comments into positive, neutral, and negative sentiments. To support the results of sentiment analysis, MAXQDA was used in the content analysis method. According to the results of the analysis, 37.1% of user comments were positive, 32.5% were negative, and 30.4% were neutral. This study is particularly important given that the implementation of robot waiters in restaurants is still in its infancy, as online reviews contribute to the understanding of new services and entities. Methodologically, this research offers an innovative approach, such as sentiment analysis, in determining society's acceptance and opinion of technology in robot-human interaction. The findings are considered important as they will provide theoretical contributions to the literature and practical contributions to sectoral applications.