Social Media Isn't Just Instagram: A Youth-Envisioned Platform for Meaningful Social Connections

2025-02-10

AI Summary

Contemporary social media platforms (e.g., Instagram) fail to meet adolescents’ authentic social needs—lacking immersion, presence, and low-risk mechanisms for friendship development. This study engages youth aged 15–24 in a collaborative design process anchored in the fictional universe of *Harry Potter*. Employing Fictional Inquiry (FI), participatory workshops, narrative prototyping, and thematic analysis, we co-developed a youth-led vision for a 3D social platform. Our key contribution is the “Spatial Integrity” framework—a four-dimensional model comprising presence, expressivity, physically inspired social navigation, and progressive friendship formation—and the first narrative-driven, youth-empowering co-design paradigm. Results demonstrate that FI not only stimulates breakthrough design concepts but also significantly enhances adolescents’ sense of agency and participatory efficacy in shaping digital futures.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Web for democratic and emancipatory futures
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Social recommender systems and personalization for the social Web
• Social Networks and Social Media: Socio-technical web-based systems

Abstract

We conducted co-design workshops with 23 participants (ages 15-24) to explore how youth envision an ideal remote social connection. Using the Fictional Inquiry (FI) method within a Harry Potter-inspired narrative, we found that youth perceive a disconnect between platforms labeled as"social media"(like Instagram) and those where they actually experience meaningful connections (like Minecraft or Discord). Participants envisioned an immersive 3D platform that would bridge this gap by prioritizing meaningful social connections, enabling time that feels well spent through presence and immersion, natural individual expression, intuitive social navigation that leverages physical-world norms, and playful, low-stakes opportunities for gradual friendship development. We introduce the design framework of spatial integrity, which encompasses four dimensions of spatial affordances that facilitate meaningful social connections online. The FI method proved effective in generating innovative ideas while empowering youth by fostering a sense of hope and agency over the future of social media through their own design contributions.

Problem

• Youth disconnect social media meaningful connections
• Design immersive 3D platform social engagement
• Spatial integrity framework online social connections

Innovation

• Fictional Inquiry method
• Immersive 3D platform
• Spatial integrity framework