CAREER: Safety by Design: Protecting Adolescents from Online Risks

本项目将研究如何利用交互设计来缩小青少年在线安全技术的关键差距，从而最大限度地减少在线风险，从而优化互联网技术为青少年提供的利益。为此，工作将：(1)发展关于青少年如何体验网络风险的新见解；(2)确定青少年寻求支持以应对这些经验的机制；(3)将这些见解转化为网络安全社会技术干预的可重用设计模式；(4)直接与青少年合作，共同设计促进自我调节和利用他们的支持网络的解决方案；(5)将这些设计实例化为高保真原型和现实世界的应用。(6)评估这些解决方案在帮助青少年更有效地管理网络风险方面是否具有发展适宜性；(7)向面向青少年的网络平台的设计者和开发者传播这些基于证据的社会技术干预措施，以保护青少年免受网络风险的侵害。这项工作有助于保护特别脆弱的青年群体，因为他们缺乏积极的在线父母调解，因此受到严重伤害的风险最高。该研究将青少年发展心理学与交互设计和计算机科学相结合，以创造新的知识、理论框架、可重用的设计模式和技术。它使用青少年弹性的社会生态框架来设计技术，帮助青少年自我调节和利用他们现有的支持网络，教会他们如何更有效地管理在线风险。通过这样做，本项目对青少年网络安全文献做出了根本性的贡献：(1)缩小青少年独特发展需求与旨在保护青少年免受网络风险的系统之间的社会技术差距；(2)基于文献中确定的风险和保护因素，设计有效和新颖的社会技术干预措施，以更有效地保护青少年免受网络风险。此外，这种新颖的“设计安全”方法将通过设计、开发、评估和传播基于证据的青少年在线安全社会技术干预措施，在经验上为改善年轻人的生活贡献有用的知识，这些知识可以很容易地转化为实践。这项研究试图实现一个重大的范式转变，建立更多以青少年为中心的社会技术解决方案，通过将青少年视为自己在线安全的关键利益相关者和代理人来赋予他们权力。这项工作检查、设计、开发和评估创新的社会技术设计干预措施，使青少年能够在他们的支持网络的帮助下自我调节他们的在线风险体验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will investigate the mechanisms by which a critical gap in adolescent online safety technologies can be closed by leveraging interaction design as a means to minimize online risks, and thus to optimize the benefits internet-enabled technologies provide to youth. To do this, the work will: (1) develop novel insights as to how teens experience online risks, (2) identify the mechanisms by which teens seek support to cope with these experiences, (3) translate these insights into reusable design patterns for sociotechnical interventions for online safety, (4) work directly with teens to co-design solutions that promote self-regulation and leverage their support networks, (5) instantiate these designs into high-fidelity prototypes and real-world applications, (6) evaluate whether these solutions are developmentally appropriate in helping adolescents manage online risks more effectively, and (7) disseminate these evidence-based sociotechnical interventions for protecting adolescents from online risks to designers and developers of online platforms that cater to teens. This work serves to protect particularly vulnerable youth populations that are at highest risk of severe harm because they lack active online parental mediation.The research integrates adolescent developmental psychology with interaction design and computer science to create new knowledge, theoretical frameworks, reusable design patterns, and technologies. It uses a social ecological framework of adolescent resilience to design technologies that help teens self-regulate and leverage their existing support networks in a way that teaches them how to manage online risks more effectively. By doing so, this project makes fundamental contributions to the adolescent online safety literature by: (1) closing the sociotechnical gap between the unique developmental needs of adolescents and the systems designed to keep teens safe from online risks, and (2) building on the risk and protective factors that have been identified in the literature to design effective and novel sociotechnical interventions to more effectively protect teens from online risks. Further, this novel "Safety by Design" approach will empirically contribute to a body of useful knowledge that improves the lives of young people by designing, developing, evaluating, and disseminating evidence-based sociotechnical interventions for adolescent online safety that can be easily translated to practice. This research seeks to achieve a significant paradigm shift towards building more teen-centric sociotechnical solutions that empower teens by treating them as key stakeholders and agents of their own online safety. The work examines, designs, develops, and evaluates innovative sociotechnical design interventions that empower teens to self-regulate their online risk experiences with the help of their support networks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.