Social media feeds are optimized for engagement, but what if they were also optimized for better disagreement?
@jonathanstray.bsky.social joined us to talk about prosocial ranking and designing feeds that support social cohesion without flattening conflict. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/pro-soc...
Privacy Control Radar
Incredible new tool from @asml.cyber.harvard.edu.web.brid.gy charting platform privacy policies on levels of transparency and opt-in vs opt-out, both today and overtime.
analytics.transparency.berkmancenter.org#q1
New study: Researchers looked at a 2022 policy change at TikTok that added a regional identity tag, and found it reduced impolite language. It may be the first (quasi) field study that shows common identity markers can improve interactions.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
In theory, X is simply scaling a platform intervention that has evidence behind it (see our library entry ⤵️). We hope, though, that public research will follow to confirm if that’s the case.
www.prosocialdesign.org/library/crow...
X has rolled out "Collaborative Notes," an AI-boosted version of Community Notes.
Community Notes have been shown to reduce the spread of misinfo, but they rely on volunteers to create. Now AI will help draft more, which still need approval from diverse human contributors to appear. bit.ly/3OLP0br
Can AI chatbots be embedded with prosocial goals?
Lena Slachmuijlder from @socialcohesiontech.bsky.social rounds up four perspectives on how AI design could be embedded with prosocial goals including cooperation, human connection, & flourishing.
techandsocialcohesion.substack.com/p/the-ai-coo...
Can social media feeds support “better conflict”?
Join us for a conversation with Jonathan Stray on Friday Feb 20 @1pm ET on prosocial ranking research that explores promising algorithmic approaches to reducing dangerous division.
luma.com/n8649ikc?tk=...
You might have seen, we updated the confidence rating for digital self-control apps to ✨convincing✨
Research now shows stronger evidence these tools help reduce unwanted social media use. Get geeky with us & go behind the scenes on how we made this decision: www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/we-find...
Update: Insta's "Your Algorithm" is now available to all users though, as SMT points out, it's a question mark how many will take advantage of it:
News site comment sections can be oases of public discourse because newsrooms are invested in quality. Encouraging to read they may be having a renaissance according to @benwhitelaw.bsky.social who shares lessons from moderating comments at the Times of London.
newpublic.substack.com/p/why-newsro...
We've published a new report!
Last October, we hosted a convening with Roblox to explore how researchers and platform teams can collaborate on actionable research to foster connection in social gaming.
Here's what we did: www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/catalyz...
Why It Matters Platforms are becoming increasingly proficient in their ability to capture and keep users' attention, which can have an adverse effect on individuals' sense of satisfaction and wellbeing. Digital Self-Control Apps give individuals who are aware of the potential detrimental effects of social media and other engagement platforms a promising way to exercise agency and improve their wellbeing.
Our friends at the @prosocialdesign.bsky.social recently updated the effectiveness of apps for regulating your time spent on social media, like @hankgreen.bsky.social’s Focus Friend, from “tentative” to “convincing” based on new research from Denmark.
www.prosocialdesign.org/library/digi...
Join our Pro-Social on Jan 22 at 1pm ET with Dr. Kimberly Voll, CEO of @braceyourselfgames.com and co-founder of the Digital Thriving Playbook.
An informal conversation on designing for positive, fulfilling digital experiences.
Register 👉 luma.com/cn2727bq?tk=...
Join our Pro-Social on Jan 22 at 1pm ET with Dr. Kimberly Voll, CEO of @braceyourselfgames.com and co-founder of the Digital Thriving Playbook.
An informal conversation on designing for positive, fulfilling digital experiences.
Register 👉 luma.com/cn2727bq?tk=...
We'll be honest: many of the 30 studies reviewed are new to us. We're excited to dig in and see which prosocial designs we can add to our library.
Screenshot of paper abstract with highlighted quote "our findings revel that 27 studies documented improved intergroup attitudes across diverse contexts..."
Social media has been implicated as a divisive global force — though scholars debate how much blame it really deserves. But a new review of 30 empirical studies finds it can also be used to reduce distrust and animosity across divides.
scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/c...
And credit to the researchers for including an engagement measure. One of the biggest barriers we hear from industry to putting prosocial design into practice is the belief that it hurts engagement. Evidence that it doesn’t—or better yet, that it improves engagement—makes uptake far more likely.
Time on page depending on post type. Connective = 2.84 minutes on page vs Non-Connective at 2.34.
Idea for platforms that want to reduce toxic division & boost engagement: uprank posts that use "connective language."
New research finds that people will spend 25% more time reading posts that use phrases like “this is just my opinion” or “I may be wrong."
mediaengagement.org/research/con...
New on the blog: a conversation with Sabhanaz Rashid Diya asks, whose values are baked into “prosocial” tech design? From content moderation to the limits of exporting the DSA, it looks at why global defaults keep failing the Global Majority. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/prosoci...
A dense methods paper, but important reading for researchers studying online behavior and prosocial design interventions. Who we study is as important as how.
osf.io/preprints/so...
Giving users the power to customize their feeds - and using AI to do so - seems to be all the rage. SMT gives rundown of what platforms - including Threads, Youtube, X and Insta - are testing out...
www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads...
For more background on Roundabout: newpublic.substack.com/p/introducin...
And research from Talia Stroud that informed its design: docs.google.com/presentation...
Here's a peek at our new NoteTracker Dashboard, a searchable database of all (1.7M) available Community Notes on X.
A key feature of the Dashboard is its ability to display both Visible and Not-yet-visible Community Notes from X. notetracker.socialmedialab.ca
At PDN we focus on designs that improve outcomes on any online platform, but for digital spaces to truly serve communities prosocial design needs to be part of a platform's core. That's why it's so exciting to see this new platform from @newpublic.org go public and enter beta!
joinroundabout.com
New study - and the first field experiment of its kind we're aware of - demonstrates that how much platforms up- or down-rank "antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity" in their feeds can have an impact on toxic division.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
TikTok is taking steps to let users limit how much AI slop they see - 1) adding a preference-slider for AI content and 2) improving methods to detect and water-mark AI content.
www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-...
Thanks Atticus! We're just trying to be a resource to folk building healthy digital spaces. Glad you found us - and let us know how we can help more.
Likewise @newpublic.org! Passing it on, here's our Airtable of yet more design libraries and resources for building healthy digital spaces: airtable.com/appFioKfXbBx...
Hi @vivekgani.bsky.social. The main difference is timing; Post Guidance (and similar interventions like www.prosocialdesign.org/library/prel...) pop up when users post a comment - giving them an opportunity to rewrite the comment. The interventions in this study are seen before a user enters a feed.
More on those "several RCTs" - conducted on Reddit, Facebook & Nextdoor - here: www.prosocialdesign.org/library/remi...
