Uzaktan sosyal temas: Uzun mesafeler arasında fiziksel etkileşimi iletebilmek için bir çerçeve

In this day and age, there is a large group of people who have to live away from their loved ones due to various reasons such as work, study, or certain health-related concerns (e.g. infection diseases). Living away from their loved ones, certain negative emotions (e.g. stress, depression, and loneliness) may develop due to the loss of physical, mental, and emotional awareness about each other. From the various ways available that could enhance awareness and presence while communicating with a loved one, remote social touch (RST) is the main focus of this research. RST focuses on stimulating the sense of touch remotely. This is because social touch is very important in for human wellbeing and the absence of it could lead to the development of stress and jeopardize the development of relationships. The research is aiming to identify various dimensions of RST and to identify the process of communicating social touch remotely through a product. The results of this research are put in an early proposed remote social touch framework that consists of three elements and their dimensions, all together explain the process of RST communications through a product.