Content moderators exposed to graphic content online are at risk of negative mental health outcomes including depression, anxiety and distressing intrusive thoughts—a hallmark symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, there is little research on strategies to protect people exposed to graphic content. Here, we empirically tested a strategy suggested on a range of online sources for handling traumatic imagery–visualizing bulletproof glass exists between oneself and the screen. Using a content moderator simulation paradigm with Amazon Mechanical Turk participants (N = 202), we experimentally tested whether this intervention reduces outcomes associated with exposure to graphic imagery. We found no empirical support for this intervention influencing intrusive thought frequency, negative intrusion characteristics like intensity, anxiety, positive affect, or negative affect. We conclude that this bulletproof glass strategy should not be recommended to groups exposed to graphic content, like content moderators.
Amid pervasive digital connectivity, maintaining digital wellbeing is increasingly important for young people. Yet empirical research on the relationship between parental mediation and digital wellbeing remains limited. Incorporating both variable- and person-centered approaches, this study explores the associations between prior parental mediation, digital disconnection and digital wellbeing among young adults. Data were drawn from 994 Chinese first-year college students (aged between 15 to 22), a developmental stage marked by increasing autonomy over digital life. Variable-centered analyses indicated that only prior active mediation was significantly associated with digital wellbeing, with rule-based disconnection mediating this association. Latent profile analysis showed that most parents practiced different mediation strategies in a balanced way. Five distinct youth-perceived mediation patterns were identified: moderate-involved (37.12%), low-involved (31.79%), high-involved (16.00%), supportive (10.97%), and restriction-oriented (4.12%). Subsequent analysis showed that the high-involved and supportive mediation pattern was most favorable for digital wellbeing, while the low-involved
The growing prevalence of problematic social media use (PSMU) and its negative association with health has become a significant public health concern. Despite increasing attention to its psychological correlates, there remains a critical need to investigate factors that might be associated with the co-occurrence of physical health and PSMU on a fine-grained level. This study aims to examine the symptom-level relationships between PSMU, physical health, self-esteem, and self-compassion and investigate potential gender differences in these relationships. A sample of 2912 Czech adults (Age: M = 27.6, SD = 12.3, Females: 61.02%) was used to examine the relationships. A stratified network analysis based on undirected mixed graphical models and network comparison tests were conducted to inspect the gender differences. Distinct gender-specific patterns were found. In women, the use of social media to escape negative emotions emerged as a bridge symptom linking PSMU with physical health. In men, fewer and weaker connections were observed between specific PSMU and physical health symptoms. Self-esteem bridged a new cluster of physical health symptoms through escape-use in both genders. Self-compassion bridged escape-use with physical health symptoms in women, whereas no direct associations were observed in men. However, the inclusion of self-compassion in the men’s network was associated with changes in existing connections, making all links between PSMU and physical health absent. These findings highlight the gender-specific nature of PSMU and underscore the need for nuanced approaches when fostering potentially protective factors that may be relevant to physical health.
This study investigates perceptions of AI-generated profile pictures and how disclosure of AI use shapes impressions. In a preregistered experiment, U.S. adults (N = 817; ages 18–99, M = 47.83, SD = 18.79; 48% men and 50% women) evaluated what they were told were social media profile pictures. The 2 × 2 factorial design varied whether images, all with a professional headshot style, were AI-generated and whether they were disclosed as AI-generated. Across three outcomes, AI-generated images were rated as higher quality than professional photos of the same subjects, but disclosure that an image was AI-generated reduced perceived quality. On average, AI generation and disclosure did not significantly affect perceptions of the person's social attractiveness or trustworthiness. Exploratory analyses indicated that self-assessed AI knowledge moderated responses to disclosure: lower-knowledge respondents downgraded labeled images and the depicted person, whereas higher-knowledge respondents evaluated labeled images and the person more positively. Taken together, the findings suggest that disclosure of AI use primarily affects evaluations of the image as an object rather than person-level impressions.
This study extends research on the ‘privacy paradox’ to the horizontal (privacy vis-à-vis peers) and vertical (privacy vis-à-vis institutions) dimensions of privacy on social media, and tests perceived benefits, privacy self-efficacy, and privacy cynicism as moderating factors for the privacy paradox on both dimensions. A cross-sectional online survey with a sample of U.S. adult social media users (N = 1,398) revealed no evidence for the privacy paradox on either the horizontal or the vertical privacy dimension (i.e., privacy concerns were positively associated with privacy management behaviors). Interestingly, perceived benefits and privacy cynicism moderated the relationships between privacy concerns and privacy management behaviors, though in the opposite direction to our prediction. In particular, the positive relationship between privacy concerns and privacy management behaviors was stronger among those with higher perceived benefits on the vertical dimension, and among those with higher privacy cynicism on both the horizontal and vertical dimensions. On the other hand, privacy self-efficacy was not a significant moderator on either dimension. Results demonstrate the multidimensional nature of online privacy and highlight the impact of conceptual and operational decisions on “finding” the privacy paradox.
