Social Understanding, Placeness, and Identity Alignment: A Design Framework for Friendship-Supportive Youth Social Media

2026-05-07

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of systematic support for the socio-psychological conditions necessary for forming, deepening, and sustaining friendships among adolescents on current social platforms. Drawing on mixed-methods data from 331 participants aged 13 to 25—including interviews, co-design sessions, surveys, diary studies, and in-the-wild deployments—the research identifies three core dimensions essential for supporting adolescent friendships: social understanding, sense of place, and identity coherence. Building on these dimensions, the work proposes the first structured design framework comprising nine concrete design spaces. This framework offers practitioners an actionable design language, comparable intervention pathways, and a foundation for systematic evaluation, yielding 209 design insights that significantly advance the field of human-computer interaction’s capacity to understand and support adolescents’ relational needs.

Abstract

We present a design framework for friendship-supportive youth social media, derived from a synthesis of five empirical studies with 331 youth participants (ages 13--25) using interviews, co-design, surveys, diary studies, and a field deployment. Iterative analysis of 209 design-relevant data points identified three pillars: \textit{Sense of Social Understanding} (interaction norms, interaction cues and scaffolding, social accountability and governance), \textit{Sense of Place} (third place and community, boundaries and personal spaces, shared presence), and \textit{Sense of Identity Alignment} (identity currency, identity plurality, relational identity signals). The framework maps nine design spaces through which platforms can support the conditions under which youth friendships form, deepen, and are maintained. It offers a shared vocabulary for locating contributions, comparing design interventions, and identifying under-explored areas for future work.

Problem

• youth social media
• friendship support
• social understanding
• sense of place
• identity alignment

Innovation

• design framework
• youth social media
• social understanding
• sense of place
• identity alignment