Teens in UCD study say disturbing social media content ‘stays in the back of my mind all day’

Young people know they are training the algorithms and want more social media control, UCD study finds

A new study from the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at UCD has found that teenagers are frustrated by social media algorithms and feel absent from discussions about content and regulation.

Five focus groups with 87 transition year students in Irish schools explored how teens navigate social media as a site of both opportunity and risk. The study, led by Megan Nyhan of University College Dublin, surfaced tensions between teens’ personal agency and the need for external safeguarding, identifying design implications for recommender systems and online safety governance.

Disturbing social media content stays in the back of my mind

The study will be presented later this month at the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) Interaction Design and Children conference in Brighton.

Students in the study expressed frustration with ‘unwanted sexual attention’ from older users and screen time limiters that were ‘performative’ and not effective.

Participants called for age-appropriate content and access to algorithm-editing tools that give more control over what they see.  They also want access to buttons to filter or blur specific content types.

‘Despite being the primary stakeholders, young people are often absent from discussions about social media,’ says project lead Megan Nyhan. ‘The respondents in this study revealed that they are subject to harm and emotional impact: examples included students looking for ‘dress inspiration’ and being shown porn. They reported late night content that was ‘freaky’ and disturbing.’

One student reported the following content in their feed: “old men…send messages with a WhatsApp number for money.”

The students know they are ‘training the algorithm’ and that their attention makes money for platforms, the study found. They reported using social media for fun, identity and social status, but feel ‘trapped in a loop’ by personalised feeds and infinite scroll.

‘This study was designed to foreground teens’ voices and enable open dialogue about their experiences with algorithmic content curation,’ according to Meghan Nyhan. ‘Teens are among the most frequent users of these platforms and yet their input is largely absent from planning, design, governance and regulation.’

Read the full paper here https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3773077.3806115

Teens are intensive users of social media recommender systems yet remain largely excluded from platform design and governance. The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) has the potential to address this through its call for stakeholder consultation in risk assessment and mitigation. To demonstrate how teens can be meaningfully engaged with as stakeholders, and to understand their experiences of algorithmically curated content, we conducted a participatory engagement study with 87 teens using scenario-based think–pair–share discussions.

Findings reveal an ongoing negotiation between benefits, risks, and harms, as teens attempt to influence algorithms while managing the emotional impact of harmful content and excessive use. We contribute: (1) an account of trade-offs between personalisation, harm, and control; (2) teen-informed design recommendations, including safeguards, low-effort feedback, and screen-time tools; and (3) a participatory engagement method. This research reframes teen recommender system use as negotiated agency rather than passive content consumption and offers actionable guidance for DSA related stakeholder engagement with teens.

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