TY - CPAPER
KW - Relatedness
KW - awareness
KW - personalization
KW - adaptable systems
KW - long-distance relationships
KW - in-/output modalities
AU - Chantal Butenberg
AU - Mar\ Zumaya
AU - Marc Hassenzahl
AU - Torben Wallbaum
AB - Young adults in long-distance relationships often miss the presence of their loved ones. Technologically mediated awareness offers a potential remedy. While Human-Computer Interaction has introduced various concepts to support such connections, these are often limited by predefined input/output modalities and fixed interaction forms. This restricts personalization and can hinder user acceptance. To address these limitations, we propose a concept of a customizable toolbox of “Closeness Atoms”. We studied needs and requirements of young adults in long-distance relationships via an online survey (n=94), literature review (n=53) and semi-structured interviews (n=7). Our findings indicate a wish to share everyday moments, emotions, and activities, but lack personalized ways to express their unique forms of relatedness. Therefore our toolbox concept enables users to combine and configure modalities such as light, sound, and video to create individual relatedness experiences. This approach supports flexible, emotionally meaningful connections tailored to diverse personal and relational needs.
BT - Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays
CY - New York, NY, USA
DO - 10.1145/3797993.3798002
N2 - Young adults in long-distance relationships often miss the presence of their loved ones. Technologically mediated awareness offers a potential remedy. While Human-Computer Interaction has introduced various concepts to support such connections, these are often limited by predefined input/output modalities and fixed interaction forms. This restricts personalization and can hinder user acceptance. To address these limitations, we propose a concept of a customizable toolbox of “Closeness Atoms”. We studied needs and requirements of young adults in long-distance relationships via an online survey (n=94), literature review (n=53) and semi-structured interviews (n=7). Our findings indicate a wish to share everyday moments, emotions, and activities, but lack personalized ways to express their unique forms of relatedness. Therefore our toolbox concept enables users to combine and configure modalities such as light, sound, and video to create individual relatedness experiences. This approach supports flexible, emotionally meaningful connections tailored to diverse personal and relational needs.
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
PP - New York, NY, USA
PY - 2026
SN - 9798400725135
T2 - Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays
TI - Closeness Atoms: Towards more Personal Relatedness Technologies
UR - https://doi.org/10.1145/3797993.3798002
ER -