BuddyBeads: techno-jewelry for non-verbal communication within teenager girls groups

The extremity in teenagers’ attitudes and actions coupled with the opportunities of mobile communication creates new behaviors and re-shapes existing ones. But, however meaningful the phone is in teenagers’ lives, it is not designed to support their need for emotional communication and group identity. The BuddyBeads project suggests alternative communication forms among teenagers, which emphasize their social structures, behaviors and needs. BuddyBeads are techno-jewelry items that facilitate non-verbal and emotional communication among group members, through codes and signals which the group decided upon together. Each group member has a matching jewelry piece and can use it to communicate her emotional state to the other group members.