Youth Online Community Interactions and Privacy Conversations

There are lots of talks about how social media can harm young people's privacy, but instead we ask...

How can online platforms and features better support teen users seeking social and privacy guidance?

I gathered data from two platforms and analyzed teen users' conversations, aiming to identify patterns in how they use asynchronous vs synchronous platforms for supportive interactions.

Here are the key findings:

• Teen users can learn about privacy through conversations—whether by discussing laws, debating issues, or sharing personal experiences
• The differences in the platform characteristics and feature designs shape teens' interaction and sharing behaviors

What's the takeaway? Platforms should provide features support teen users in finding and checking information in real-time, as well as features that help users make sense of complex and nested conversations.

Read the work-in-progress short paper published on USENIX Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security here. Full paper will be available soon.