Natalie Bazarova

Associate Professor of Communication

Natalie Bazarova, professor of communication, leads the Social Media Lab. She studies the psychology of communicating on social platforms, with a focus on the mental health and wellbeing of children online. 

Bazarova says:

“Social media platforms, initially marketed as places to connect with friends and share your life with the world, are now on trial for becoming ‘digital casinos’ that allegedly trap young people through manipulative design and addictive features that deliver variable, intermittent rewards. The core question is whether companies intentionally designed these products to harm young people by exploiting natural biases toward instant gratification and engineering design features that supply effortless, continuous reinforcement, thus hijacking self-control to encourage compulsive use. 

“What will determine the outcome of the ongoing trial is whether algorithmically optimizing user engagement to keep users on the platform and encourage repeat visits is genuinely aimed at creating meaningful experiences, as platforms often claim, or if it comes at the cost of known risks to users’ well-being, as some internal documents appear to suggest.”

Ashley Shea

Ph.D. candidate

Ashley Shea is a Ph.D. candidate in the field of communication.

Shea says:

“According to the plaintiff, common features like infinite scroll and autoplay exploit a young user’s innate tendencies to seek reward, resolve uncertainty and escape discomfort. Indeed, researchers have identified that such features - referred to as ‘attention capture deceptive mechanisms’ - are problematic not simply because they are persuasive but rather, persuasive through algorithmic personalization. This means that the prior clicks, shares and digital decisions of a young user are repeatedly used to algorithmically personalize subsequent experiences for them. This can be particularly concerning for young users because the reward center in their brain matures faster than the prefrontal cortex responsible for self-control, making them particularly susceptible to stimulating and immediately gratifying stimuli. Simply put, young users receive personalized recommendations and notifications based on prior behaviors that were executed while lacking sufficient cognitive resources required of self-control.”

Adam Hoffman

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Adam Hoffman, an assistant professor of psychology, studies how digital media shapes adolescents’ sense of self during a critical stage of development.

Hoffman says:

“Parents and caregivers absolutely play a critical role in helping young people develop digital literacy and self-regulation. Encouraging healthy norms around technology use do matter. However, this can only go so far. It is important to recognize that even highly involved families are working against platforms that are just intentionally designed to be difficult to step away from. And this is not just a challenge for teens – adults struggle with it too.

“Social media was not built with mental health as a primary goal. It was built to maximize engagement in an attention economy that we now live in. As a result, the burden of managing harm has largely been placed on users and families rather than on the companies designing these systems. I think that if we are serious about improving mental health outcomes, we will need larger, structural changes to how social media platforms are designed, rather than solely relying on better individual self-control from our teens.”