28 Jan 2026
How can technology generate a feeling of connectedness, even across distance? Interview with psychologist Sarah Diefenbach about the possibilities and unwanted effects of new applications.
with the CoCo prototypes: teddy bears that parents can use to send voice messages to their children. | © LMU
Professor Sarah Diefenbach researches at the Chair of Economic and Organizational Psychology. As part of the collaborative project “Relatedness Over Distance,” she and research assistant Angelina Krupp methodologically supported and evaluated the development of prototypes designed to create a feeling of connectedness.
We make phone calls, write messages, talk on Zoom: What qualities must a technology have to become part of our everyday social interactions?
Sarah Diefenbach: First of all, it’s about whether a technology fulfills a useful function. We’re seeing with AI how quickly it’s being adopted by many people, because they see the utility. Or take smartphone apps – the most popular ones are often quite simple, like the alarm clock, the camera, or apps for public transport.
For a technology to be accepted, however, the purely pragmatic is not the only thing that matters from a psychological perspective. In the broadest sense, it’s about how I feel as a user. Does a technology make me feel competent, for example, or help me discover new things, or feel connected to other people?
Connectedness also happens implicitly through traces in everyday life, like the crumbs on the dinner table we suddenly miss when the other person is away.Sarah Diefenbach
In an ongoing project, in which you were involved, technologies were developed to facilitate relatedness over distance. How do we experience connectedness in direct interactions with each other?
Feeling related with others is one of the most fundamental needs of humans; it’s essential to our welfare as social beings. In everyday life, we employ many strategies to fulfill this need. This can be little rituals, such as when we greet each other, or in families a goodnight kiss. In friendships there are highly individual practices for showing our connectedness – giving each other gifts, writing letters. But connectedness also happens implicitly through traces in everyday life, like the crumbs on the dinner table we suddenly miss when the other person is away.
How can such everyday traces be created via technology?
It’s about creating a feeling of the other’s presence – say, for couples in long-distance relationships. Then a light might go on in my partner’s apartment when I come home. However, people can quickly feel as if they’re being kept tabs on, or might begin to wonder why their partner isn’t home yet. This can cause them to disconnect the lamp so they don’t have to account for their movements. This illustrates how challenging it is to artificially support something as sensitive as connectedness. Such technologies can have consequences that you need to consider and which can stand in the way of their acceptance.
Which ideas to support relatedness were pursued in the project?
Cuddly toys were developed which convey tactile signals to support the connectedness of parents and children. Or a data glove that allows people to transmit touches to relatives in hospitals or care homes. This example shows the tightrope you walk when developing such technologies. Under certain circumstances, the idea can seem a bit creepy.
When a technology manages to convey closeness, can it replace actual closeness?
Wanting to create the exact same feeling through technology as you get in a direct encounter is the wrong conceptualization. Rather, technology can be helpful in various situations. There’s also the question of whether technology attempts to simulate something or to create new experiences. The data glove only simulates; the real contact is probably always preferable. But the glove is a workaround for situations where this is not possible. The rapid sending of photos from on the move, by contrast, creates an experience that is only possible through technology. Many people appreciate this nimble form of communication through Messenger as a way of staying connected: sending a little “I’m thinking of you” instead of getting involved in a dialog.
deliberately puts away her phone sometimes. “Because I’m very conscious of what goes with it. The mere presence of a phone on the table changes the atmosphere of a discussion. People are not as present together in the moment, as they have the feeling they could be interrupted or the other person could seek a distraction.”
All these technological possibilities didn’t exist not too long ago. Do people feel more connected today as a result?
Yes and no. I do a lot of research into social media. While social networks bring more people into contact, being constantly connected with everyone is also a trap, because you compare yourself more with others, enter into a sort of competition for followers and likes, and acquire a distorted picture of reality. Moreover, it appears that real contacts become rarer as a result. People even make fewer phone calls, because they’re in contact quicker at a superficial level through things like family chats. But in these chats, you don’t really find out how the other person is doing. Many reports show that feelings of loneliness are increasing in our societies. There are a lot of factors at play here; it’s not just about technology. But technology does have a lot of side effects.
A new technology doesn’t just mean providing some possibility. It often reaches deep into people’s experiences and needs.Sarah Diefenbach
Is there no way of avoiding them?
It’s very challenging to design technology that creates a positive experience. Many features and functions have side effects that cannot be recognized at first glance and for which you have to take responsibility. They can grow exponentially all of a sudden, because they’re so far-reaching. A new technology doesn’t just mean providing some possibility. It often reaches deep into people’s experiences and needs.
With this in mind, we developed a method for identifying unwanted side effects of technologies during the development process. Using a playful approach, it asks the question, for example, what would happen if the new product got in the hands of a person with bad intentions, or with an addictive personality. The method is already being adopted by start-ups, and responses so far have been very positive.
Klara Schuster, Angelina Krupp, Sarah Diefenbach: Miles apart but close hat heart? Exploration of a UX checklist for relatedness technologies based on focus groups In: i-com – Journal of Interactive Media, 24(1)
Sarah Diefenbach and her team developed the Cassandra method for identifying potential unwanted side effects of new technologies during the development process.
Publication: Daniel Ullrich, Eva Bischoff, Sarah Diefenbach: The Cassandra Method: Using Dystopian Visions to Inform Responsible HCI Design and Evaluation. In: Proceedings of the 37th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (OZCHI '25), 505 – 529, 2025
Website: Nähe über Distanz (supported by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space)
Experience Design Internship: Blog written by LMU students