From"Fail Fast"to"Mature Safely:"Expert Perspectives as Secondary Stakeholders on Teen-Centered Social Media Risk Detection

2026-01-20

AI Summary

This study addresses a critical gap in adolescent online risk detection technologies, which have predominantly centered on familial perspectives while overlooking the needs of secondary stakeholders beyond the household and the practical constraints of real-world deployment. Through in-depth interviews with 33 online safety experts, the research systematically evaluates a youth-centered risk detection dashboard and, for the first time, identifies five core tensions that arise during its actual implementation. Grounded in human-computer interaction (HCI) principles, the work proposes a paradigm shift from “fail fast” to “safely mature” in the development of such technologies. It further distills actionable design insights and sustainable deployment strategies that balance the interests of multiple stakeholders, offering both theoretical and practical guidance for the ecosystem-oriented implementation of adolescent online safety tools.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments

Abstract

In addressing various risks on social media, the HCI community has advocated for teen-centered risk detection technologies over platform-based, parent-centered features. However, their real-world viability remains underexplored by secondary stakeholders beyond the family unit. Therefore, we present an evaluation of a teen-centered social media risk detection dashboard through online interviews with 33 online safety experts. While experts praised our dashboard's clear design for teen agency, their feedback revealed five primary tensions in implementing and sustaining such technology: objective vs. context-dependent risk definition, informing risks vs. meaningful intervention, teen empowerment vs. motivation, need for data vs. data privacy, and independence vs. sustainability. These findings motivate us to rethink"teen-centered"and a shift from a"fail fast"to a"mature safely"paradigm for youth safety technology innovation. We offer design implications for addressing these tensions before system deployment with teens and strategies for aligning secondary stakeholders'interests to deploy and sustain such technologies in the broader ecosystem of youth online safety.

Problem

• teen-centered
• social media risk detection
• secondary stakeholders
• online safety
• youth technology

Innovation

• teen-centered design
• risk detection
• secondary stakeholders
• mature safely
• online safety