extended-abstract

Nudging Users Towards Conscious Social Media Use

Authors:

Alberto Monge Roffarello,

Luigi De RussisAuthors Info & Claims

MobileHCI '23 Companion: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction

Article No.: 14, Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/3565066.3608703

Published: 26 September 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Social networks, especially on mobile interfaces, can potentially undermine users’ digital wellbeing promoting passive and excessive use. Previous attempts to support users’ self-control either focus on restricting use, e.g., through usage timers and blockers, or removing functionality, e.g., by hiding recommendations. In an attempt to avoid these generic and drastic methods, this paper builds on the idea of using nudging mechanisms to make users recognize those design patterns in a social network app that are deliberately adopted to capture attention, the so-called Attention-Capture Damaging Patterns (ACDPs). Being engineered to make users lose their sense of time and control, we hypothesize that making them visible can trigger conscious decisions and more meaningful usage sessions.

Thanks to a co-design study with six mobile users, we designed two nudges for two different ACDPs commonly used on mobile social networks - infinite scroll and pull-to-refresh. Then, we implemented the two nudges in a mobile app, asking 17 users to try them in a 2-week exploratory study. Results show that the implemented nudges made participants feel more in control of their social media use and partially impacted their quantitative smartphone behaviors. Overall, our work points to exploring alternative – less intrusive – nudging methods to support users in self-regulating their smartphone use.

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Cited By

De Russis LMonge Roffarello AScibetta L(2024)Dialogues with Digital Wisdom: Can LLMs Help Us Put Down the Phone?Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good10.1145/3677525.3678640(56-61)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677525.3678640
Ruiz NMolina León GHeuer H(2024)Design Frictions on Social Media: Balancing Reduced Mindless Scrolling and User SatisfactionProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202410.1145/3670653.3677495(442-447)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3670653.3677495
Monge Roffarello ADe Russis L(2024)Hey StepByStep! Can you teach me how to use my phone better?International Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103195183:COnline publication date: 14-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103195
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Nudging Users Towards Conscious Social Media Use
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

MobileHCI '23 Companion: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction

September 2023

256 pages

ISBN:9781450399241

DOI:10.1145/3565066

Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 26 September 2023

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MobileHCI '23: 25th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction

September 26 - 29, 2023

Athens, Greece

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Cited By

De Russis LMonge Roffarello AScibetta L(2024)Dialogues with Digital Wisdom: Can LLMs Help Us Put Down the Phone?Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good10.1145/3677525.3678640(56-61)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677525.3678640
Ruiz NMolina León GHeuer H(2024)Design Frictions on Social Media: Balancing Reduced Mindless Scrolling and User SatisfactionProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202410.1145/3670653.3677495(442-447)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3670653.3677495
Monge Roffarello ADe Russis L(2024)Hey StepByStep! Can you teach me how to use my phone better?International Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103195183:COnline publication date: 14-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103195
Fagan P(2024)Clicks and Tricks: The Dark Art of Online PersuasionCurrent Opinion in Psychology10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101844(101844)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101844

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