Maaike Helleman

Where and how do we connect in an age when physical presence increasingly competes with digital presence? This research explores the impact of smartphones on face-to-face interactions, particularly in shared table interactions at restaurants, homes, and cafés. As smartphones have become extensions of the self—tools that not just function for communication, but cognition and identity—they are influencing the way we relate to one another.

This design explores how the increasing use—and growing acceptance—of smartphones affects the dynamics of physical interaction during shared table interactions. It’s goals is to uncovers not only the friction that smartphones introduce into social life, but also the unexpected possibilities they create. In doing so, it frames smartphones not merely as cure or poison but as active participants in the dynamics of attention and validation. It ultimately reflects on the tension between physical connection and digital connection in contemporary life.

The Extended Presence is not just about coffee or smartphones, it’s about how we live together today, how we share time and space and how we might design other ways to be present — with each other and technology at the same time. This project invites people to experience how both people and smartphones can activate rituals — how they influence the movements, the atmosphere, and the memory left behind from the moment.