Social media is central to activists, who use it internally for coordination and externally to reach supporters and the public. To date, the HCI community has not explored activists' perspectives on future social media platforms. In interviews with 14 activists from an environmental and a queer-feminist movement in Germany, we identify activists' needs and feature requests for future social media platforms. The key finding is that on- and offline safety is their main need. Based on this, we make concrete proposals to improve safety measures. Increased control over content presentation and tools to streamline activist workflows are also central to activists. We make concrete design and research recommendations on how social media platforms and the HCI community can contribute to improved safety and content presentation, and how activists themselves can reduce their workload.
As a marginalised group at increased risk of violence, trans people's perspectives on social media aid us in a nuanced understanding of current issues and consideration of more just futures. We conducted in-depth design interviews along participatory speculative activities around a utopian social media application with seven young trans participants to explore desirable and meaningful social media. Participants reported experiences of algorithmic and other forms of violence, and discussed frictions between safety and freedom as they described their embodied experiences of shifting spaces. We identify scale, commercialisation and automation as core issues, and challenge the potential of large-public, profile-centric social media spaces to support human flourishing. Drawing from aspects of social media participants consider desirable and meaningful, we discuss the idea of a shift towards interest-centric, community-oriented spaces that prioritise interactions based on solidarity over those based on identity.
Adolescents are frequent users of social media, with research suggesting both potential harms and positive impacts from use. Black and Hispanic/Latinx youth in particular are both early adopters and high users of social media platforms. However, adolescents–and youth of color in particular–have relatively little say in the design of such platforms. We propose youth participatory action research (YPAR) as a model for informing co-design sessions with representatives of a social networking platform to develop community-building solutions and improve youth developmental outcomes. In a four-months-long study with Black and Hispanic/Latinx teens aged 14-17 ($n = 14$), we examined how their sense of engagement and efficacy were altered by actively leading, participating in and contributing to design exercises facilitated by Instagram, one of the world's largest social media sites. Results of pre- and post- surveys indicated a significant increase in teens’ civic engagement as well as leadership efficacy. Our results contribute to the understanding of teenagers’ expectations and attitudes toward social media and how participatory methods for achieving equity in design can affect change. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Web3 social media refers to a new generation of platforms built on decentralized technologies, particularly blockchain. Although academia has investigated the newly emerging Web3 social media, it is not clear how users perceive the usability of such platforms and how these perceptions are influenced by the inherent characteristics of Web3. To address this gap, we utilize affordance theory to explore the unique usability of Web3 social media compared with Web2 social media. We conducted interviews with 32 participants who are experienced with Web3 social media and examined the affordances of Web3 social media from the perspectives of content creation, content consumption, and community interaction. We further discuss the correlation between the usability of Web3 social media and the underlying decentralized technology, and provide design implications for enhancing the usability of this new type of social interaction platform.
This paper provides an in-depth view of people's experiences with food allergies, focusing on their social media use and its influences on healthy habits and identities. Through 18 interviews, our study examined how information and identity work on social media influences health behaviors, social interactions, self-expression, and navigation of algorithms for those with food allergies. Social media functions as both a source of empowerment and community and a platform for stigma and emotional distress. Our findings highlight how individuals manage their food allergy identity and online visibility on algorithm-driven platforms. The concept of ``on-and-off identities'' is introduced to capture this complex identity work. Design considerations for HCI include: 1) creating mindful social media experiences that support agency while addressing vulnerability in identity and information work, and 2) reflections on the challenges of evolving health contexts and social media ecologies. We urge HCI researchers and designers to adopt a holistic perspective on identity and information work to better support marginalized populations.
Queer Joy is conceptualised as a form of resistance to oppression by celebrating queerness in the face of adversity. This research aimed to centre queer joy and understand how it is expressed and may be facilitated in online spaces. To do this we conducted a survey with 100 UK participants who indicated they identified as LGBTQ+ on the online recruitment platform Prolific. We asked a series of open and closed questions in an online survey to investigate 1) what queer joy looks like on social media 2) how queer joy content is engaged with on social media 3) which platforms are perceived to facilitate queer joy and 4) how queer people protect their privacy online. The results suggested that to facilitate queer joy online, platforms should allow flexible self expression and community engagement, while allowing for granular control over privacy and the audience such content is shown to.
This study reveals a significant shift in how users perceive and engage with social media over time. Our analysis is based on qualitative longitudinal research carried out over ten years, involving a small group of participants in 2012, 2017, and 2022. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted using stimulated recall allowing for retrospection and reflection. Through this methodology, we trace the shifting perceptions of social media users, from initially embracing these platforms for quick, fun, and social activities, to later recognizing their potential intrusiveness and seeking strategies to manage their use. We outline three central trajectories that illustrate shifts in social media use across time: from public performance to private interaction, from producing to consuming and from fun to problematic. For HCI and social media studies, these findings underscore the need to prioritize user agency, ethical design practices, and longitudinal research endeavors to understand the evolving impacts of social media.