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Youth, while tech-savvy and highly active on social media, are still vulnerable to online privacy and security risks. Therefore, it is critical to understand how they negotiate and manage social connections versus protecting themselves in…
Online communities can offer many benefits for youth including peer learning, cultural expression, and skill development. However, most HCI research on youth-focused online communities has centered communities developed by adults for youth…
Through co-design interviews ($N=19$) and a design evaluation survey (N=136) with U.S. teens ages 13-18, we investigated teens' privacy management on social media. Our study revealed that 28% of teens with public accounts and 15% with…
Adolescents increasingly rely on online technologies to explore their identities, form social connections, and access information and entertainment. However, their growing digital engagement exposes them to significant online risks,…
As teenage use of social media platform continues to proliferate, so do concerns about teenage privacy and safety online. Prior work has established that privacy on networked publics, such as social media, is complex, requiring users to…
AI companions are increasingly popular among teenagers, yet current platforms lack safeguards to address developmental risks and harmful normalization. Despite growing concerns, little is known about how parents and developmental psychology…
AI companion chatbots are increasingly popular with teens. While these interactions are entertaining, they also risk overuse that can potentially disrupt offline daily life. We examined how adolescents describe reliance on AI companions,…
Adolescents heavily rely on social media to build and maintain close relationships, yet current platform designs often make self-disclosure feel risky or uncomfortable. Through a three-part study involving 19 teens aged 13-18, we identify…
Online community moderators are on the front lines of combating problems like hate speech and harassment, but new modes of interaction can introduce unexpected challenges. In this paper, we consider moderation practices and challenges in…
People leverage avatars to communicate nonverbal behaviors in immersive virtual reality (VR), like interpersonal distance [2, 6] and virtual touch [5]. However, violations of appropriate physical distancing and unsolicited intimate touching…
Cybergrooming is a form of online abuse that threatens teens' mental health and physical safety. Yet, most prior work has focused on detecting perpetrators' behaviors, leaving a limited understanding of how teens might respond to such…
In this position paper we draw attention to safety risks against youth and young adults that originate through the combination of online and in-person interaction, and opportunities for AI to address these risks. Our context of study is…
Vent channels on Discord, which are chat channels developed for people to express frustrations, can become an informal type of peer support system. This paper is a qualitative study of experiences with vent channels on Discord, examining…
We study how and why university students chose and use VPNs, and whether they are aware of the security and privacy risks that VPNs pose. To answer these questions, we conducted 32 in-person interviews and a survey with 349 respondents, all…
Social media platforms have faced increasing scrutiny over whether and how they protect youth online. While online risks to children have been well-documented by prior research, how social media platforms communicate about these risks and…
TikTok has been criticized for its low privacy standards, but little is known about how its adolescent users protect their privacy. Based on interviews with 54 adolescents in Switzerland, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of…
Social Virtual Reality (VR), where people meet in virtual spaces via 3D avatars, is used by children and adults alike. Children experience new forms of harassment in social VR where it is often inaccessible to parental oversight. To date,…
We collected and analyzed Instagram direct messages (DMs) from 173 youth aged 13-21 (including 86 LGBTQ+ youth). We examined youth's risk-flagged social media trace data with their self-reported mental health outcomes to examine how the…
Worldwide, a large number of people interact with each other by means of online chatting. There has been a significant rise in the number of platforms, both social and professional, such as WhatsApp, Facebook,and Twitter, which allow people…
The exchange of personal information in digital environments poses significant risks, including identity theft, privacy breaches, and data misuse. Addressing these challenges requires a deep understanding of user behavior and mental models…