CuddleConnect

Abstract

Children often experience emotional distress during periods of separation from their parents, while parents may feel guilt about their limited availability. Yet, existing remote parent–child communication technologies rarely accommodate children’s communicative capacities or provide meaningful support for their agency. Thus, we present CuddleConnect, an interactive system that supports child-initiated, affective remote communication. CuddleConnect combines a weighted plush toy for children with a mobile application for parents, enabling children to express emotions and request hugs through light cues, while allowing parents to receive these requests on their smartphones and respond with mediated hugs delivered via haptic feedback and warmth on the plush toy. We report findings from a one-week in-situ study with four parent–child dyads, highlighting both opportunities for fostering closeness and challenges related to ambiguity and responsiveness. These insights inform design implications for future synchronous and asynchronous parent–child communication technologies.

Publication

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