Supporting Social Interactions with an Expressive Heart Rate Sharing Application.

The present work explores the social dynamics of expressive biosignals: leveraging wearable technologies to introduce sensed physiological data as a means of clarifying the emotional or psychological processes underlying our subjective experiences. We developed an Android application that linked to a wearable heart rate sensor and allowed for the direct sharing and real-time broadcasting of users’ heart rate via text messaging. We deployed this application in a two-week field study to investigate the contextual triggers, perceptions, and consequences of users’ sharing behaviors. The study (N=13) utilized a combination of Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) and qualitative interviews to discover the situations in which users were more or less likely to share their heart rate with contacts, and the subsequent interactions that occurred after sharing. The results revealed that participants used heart rate sharing as a means to express emotions and provide daily updates, as well as simply a novel and playful form of communication. They reported a variety of communicative consequences of their sharing as well as specific logistical and psychological barriers to sharing. The implications of these results for the design of expressive biosignal sharing systems for supporting positive social interactions are discussed.