Excessive smartphone use can negatively influence social interactions by reducing conversation quality and making companions feel excluded in shared settings. While many approaches focus on top-down restrictions such as limiting screen time, this project follows a different direction.
Whisper
An interactive audio narrative box designed to enrich face-to-face social interactions in public places without restricting smartphone use.
Help people reconnect in shared social spaces by introducing subtle audio prompts that restart face-to-face conversation without restricting smartphone use.
Whisper prototype placed in a cafe setting.
Whisper explores a bottom-up approach that supports collocated conversations naturally. It is an interactive audio narrative box that plays short, pre-recorded stories during lulls in conversation. With its wavy form and wooden appearance, it blends into cafe environments without demanding continuous attention.
A participant interacting with Whisper story tokens.
Rather than blocking phone usage, Whisper acts as a supporter. It mimics the feeling of overhearing nearby tables and introduces narrative prompts that spark curiosity, redirect attention from screens, and create natural entry points for new conversations.
Whisper also includes magnetic story tokens so users can physically switch genres, such as comedy or mystery. Insights from these tangible interactions informed later iterations like Boost, a conversational aid that monitors dialogue and introduces curated movie trivia during silent moments. Together, these projects share a common vision: designing HCI systems that support social interaction dynamics instead of controlling them.
Contributors
- Aykut Coskun
- Duru Erdem
- Cagla Yildirim
- Hakan Yilmazer
Papers
- Are We 'Really' Connected? Understanding Smartphone Use During Social Interaction in Public Places
- Designing for Social Interaction in the Age of Excessive Smartphone Use
- Mind the Whisper: Enriching Collocated Social Interactions in Public Places through Audio Narratives
- From Silence to Dialogue: Boosting Collocated Social Interactions with Technology