Beyond Screen Time: Context- and Content-tailored Interventions to Social Media Usage to Enhance Digital Well-being

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Enrico Rukzio
• Subject Area: Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561828495

Mobile connectivity introduces a "Mobile Connectivity Paradox" where, despite the productivity and entertainment gains from mobile devices, they often lead to a feeling of lost control during their usage. However, achieving digital well-being necessitates a balance between connection and disconnection, especially as smartphones become a source of distraction, with, e.g., Germans spending over three hours daily on their phones. Excessive use can disrupt work, encourage procrastination, and induce negative emotions. Hence, many users express their intention to limit smartphone usage. Despite this intention, e.g., with the aid of digital well-being applications, users often experience resistance to reminders and limitations. In turn, it contributes to unconscious and frequent usage, later making them regret their time. The phenomenon of smartphone overuse is especially noticeable in the context of social media. Research indicates that adolescents identified as pathologically addicted to social media are significantly more prone to depression symptoms and experience higher stress levels. Additionally, excessive social media sessions, particularly those involving infinite scrolling, frequently lead to feelings of regret. Infinite scrolling is a feature often implemented in social media applications to keep users engaged by seamlessly loading new content to scroll through. This feature is prominently implemented in social media applications such as TikTok, which has recently been under suspicion of breaching the Digital Services Act by the European Commission exactly because of this feature. While there have been several attempts to develop interventions to reduce social media or smartphone overuse in the past, recent numbers from the European Statistical Office show that the amount of time people spend on social media has not decreased. This trend is undermining the effectiveness of those interventions. We posit that the reason for this ineffectiveness is that most research still refers to social media usage as an isolated interaction without considering the users' context during usage or the type of content they are engaging with. Nonetheless, evidence hints that both the context and content play crucial roles in how users respond to social media interventions. Thus, the primary aim of this project is to design, develop, and evaluate interventions for social media usage that are tailored to the user's current context and the content that they consume. By stepping away from viewing social media use in isolation, we embrace a comprehensive strategy that also considers the user's context and consumed content. With this project, we see the potential to surpass the effectiveness of existing social media interventions by researching context- and content-tailored interventions. We will systematically assess the effectiveness of these tailored interventions through longitudinal field studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants