Remote social touch framework: a way to communicate physical interactions across long distances

Nowadays, living away from loved ones is a common practice due to various reasons such as work, study, or certain health-related concerns (e.g., infection diseases). Such practice aggregates certain negative emotions such as depression due to the loss of physical, mental, and emotional awareness about loved ones. Because of the importance of social touch for one’s wellbeing, this paper reports the research focusing on remote social touch (RST), as a way to stimulate the sense of touch remotely to regain some of the lost awareness. The research identified various dimensions of RST and the process of communicating social touch remotely through a product. This is done through an extensive literature survey, online diary keeping, and interviews. The paper also presents the early proposed RST framework that consists of three elements (actors, product, and communication) and their dimensions, that explain the process of how RST communications can be successfully achieved through a product.