“My Happiness Makes You Smile”: Beginning to Understand Telepathic Superpower Design Via Brain-Muscle Interfaces

Designing superpowers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), often inspired by science fiction, has garnered increased attention. However, it is important to ask whether such superpower designs might have inherent negative side effects, especially considering that technological advances allow going beyond short demos to integrate these superpowers into everyday life. To understand the positive and negative side effects of superpower design, we created "EmoPals" and studied it in everyday life. EmoPals is a novel system inspired by telepathy, where one user's emotions are detected through a brain-computer interface and replicated on the other user's face through electrical muscle stimulation, therefore one user's happiness makes the other smile and vice versa. A 5-day field study with 12 participants suggests that EmoPals can strengthen emotional connections and facilitate empathy, however, it also highlights the negative side effects of amplifying negative emotions and social discomfort. We propose five design recommendations for designing superpowers that account for negative side effects. Ultimately, we aim to deepen our understanding of superpower design for everyday life.