Continual Remote Connectedness through Peripheral Vibro-Tactile Displays

In 2011, a young American adult in average sent and received over 100 text messages per day. Such communication habits indicate that in particular young people feel a strong urge to continually connect with people that are not physically present. It has been shown that always-on connections, e.g. by video chat, can satisfy this need. However, there might be situations in which video chat is not feasible, e.g. when it distract from other tasks us or violates the participants’ privacy. We propose exploring the sense of touch as an alternative communication channel for creating remote connectedness. Our initial research focuses on the question on how to design haptic user interfaces so that they stay out of focused and in peripheral attention, so that they do not interfere with daily tasks. Author