From Procedure to Peril | Digital Health Technologies: UMSI Research Roundup
Monday, 06/29/2026
Last Updated: Monday, 06/29/2026
By Noor HindiUniversity of Michigan School of Information faculty and PhD students are creating and sharing knowledge that helps build a better world. Here are some of their recent publications.
Publications
Mobile intervention for emerging adults with regular cannabis use: a micro-randomized trial
The Lancet, September 2026
Maureen Waltona, Inbal Nahum-Shania, Maya Campbella, Devin C. Tomlinsona, Autumn Rae Florimbioa, Susobhan Ghosh, Yongyi Guoe, Pei-Yao Hungc, Mark W. Newman, Jeremy J. Ling , Tianchen Qiang, John Dziake, Huijie Pane, Kelly W. Zhangd, Lauren Zimmermann, Erin E. Bonarb, Susan Murphy, Lara N. Coughlin
Background: Cannabis use is prevalent among emerging adults, with regular use increasing risk for problems; yet few seek treatment. Using a micro-randomized trial (MRT), the study aims were to test a personalizing just-in-time adaptive interventions (pJITAI), which is powered by a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to improve the JITAI in real-time.
Methods: Emerging adults (N = 122) with regular cannabis use were enrolled in a 30-day MRT, and completed a 1-month post-test and 2-month follow-up (e.g., after MRT start; NCT05824754). During the MRT, participants were prompted to complete twice-daily surveys, followed by twice-daily micro-randomizations to intervention message or no message (probabilities determined by the RL algorithm). Primary outcomes were 1-month feasibility and acceptability; MRT results were examined for the effect of intervention message delivery (vs. not) on proximal intervention engagement and cannabis use (next decision point; intent-to-treat).
Findings: The app was feasible (89.1% (n = 122/137) downloaded; 77.1% (5642/7320) of twice-daily surveys completed, and acceptable (80.4% (n = 90/112) positively rated the messages for care, support, warmth, and respect). In MRT analyses, delivering a message (vs. not) increased proximal engagement (b = 0.044; 95% CI: 0.018, 0.070) but did not affect proximal cannabis use (b = 0.008; 95% CI: −0.003, 0.020). A clinically meaningful negative correlation was found between average engagement and cannabis use days at 2-months (b = −3.38; 95% CI: −8.68, 1.91).
Interpretation: The pJITAI is promising among not-in-treatment emerging adults, with messages increasing engagement, warranting further refinement to optimize this intervention.
Technology Redux: Revisiting Past, Reflecting Present, Provoking Future
DIS '26: Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, June 2026
Jiyeon Amy Seo, Soobin Park, EunJeong Cheon, Youn-kyung Lim, Hyungjun Cho
This paper introduces Technology Redux, a new methodological approach in HCI that seeks to reenact past technological experiences in today’s everyday life, critically reflect on the roles and impacts of present technologies, and provoke new perspectives on future directions of technological development. Building on reflections from, BeeperRedux, a case study that recreated the 1990s beeper as a smartphone application, we present four practical strategies for enacting Technology Redux: (1) reproducing experiences beyond replicating past technologies, (2) balancing friction for provocation and everyday integration, (3) integrating personal narratives as research resources, and (4) surfacing the sociocultural and infrastructural contexts. We argue that this methodology uniquely integrates the perspectives and strengths of the historicist approach, speculative design, and research products, introducing a critical and actionable research practice for HCI.
Normative White Internet Practices: Performances at the Edge of a Digital Black Community
Social Media + Society, June 2026
Following the murder of George Floyd, more than 2,000 White-identifying Reddit users applied to the subreddit, r/BlackPeopleTwitter, in hopes of becoming verified allies. Prior research has argued that White people may seek out digital contexts to learn about and practice race. However, few studies examine why, and none problematize the relationship between normative internet practices and Whiteness—normative White internet practices. In collaboration with r/BlackPeopleTwitter moderators and rooted in a theoretical orientation of race as doings, this ethnographic and qualitative case study aimed to document examples of normative White internet practices through a focus on the performances of White users seeking allyship at the edge of a digital Black community. The study analysis focuses on 3,219 White ally applications sent in the year surrounding George Floyd’s murder—when and where normative Whiteness was actively and openly contested. The findings begin to articulate a repertoire of normative White internet practices as White-identifying users engaged in information seeking, self-differentiation, impression management, and spatial negotiation to center individualistic projects rooted in Whiteness even when obscured as care for others. These unsolicited and normative practices took on distinct capacities for harm when sent to r/BlackPeopleTwitter moderators. Online racism may persist due to more subtle and normalized forms of racialized harm that do not trigger platformed or moderator interventions. As scholars continue to study racism on social media, there remains a need to partner with online communities to name and organize against digital harms enacted through normative White internet practices.
Sorting of Many Sorts: Avenues Toward Formalizing Approaches for Multi-Modal Artifacts in Participatory Design and Research
DIS '26 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, June 2026
F. Ria Khan, Hana Chung, Soyoun Jang, MinYoung Yoo, Angela D. R. Smith, Samuel Barnett, Alesandra Baca-Vázquez, Jay Bolter, Gabriela Marcu, Kentaro Toyama
There is growing interest in HCI for collecting multi-modal artifacts, specifically in emerging approaches to participatory design and research. Multi-modal artifacts are design artifacts that hold multiple form factors and/or artifacts that are participant-created through physical or digital fabrication, or as documentation. Multi-modal artifacts provide greater depth for gaining participant knowledge and design insights; however, best practices for researching with this form of data remain ambiguous, informal, and idiosyncratic. Thus, this workshop seeks to open dialogue and lay the groundwork around formalizing unique strategies to deploy and analyze multi-material and participant-created data. We will bring together researchers and practitioners across disciplines to discuss their expertise, exploration, and interest in multi-modal artifacts. The workshop structure will center two main themes: 1) Artifacts as participant-created, shaping participant/researcher/artifact relationships, and 2) Different materialities of data, forefronting embodied reflexivity. Critically considering these themes will hope to evoke novel, distinct insights on multi-modal artifacts in participatory practices.
Bridging Trans Community Knowledge with Verified Information: Design Considerations for Patient-Surgeon Digital Communication Platforms for Gender-Affirming Surgery
DIS '26: Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, June 2026
Aloe DeGuia, Mary Byrnes, Tee Chuanromanee, Gaines Blasdel, Jules Madzia, Megan Lane, Oliver L. Haimson
For trans people seeking gender-affirming surgery, there are barriers to accessing trustworthy information about procedures, surgeons, and the postoperative process. Trans-led online information sharing communities are essential tools for trans people seeking surgery, however, they rely on community knowledge that may not always be accessible, complete, or accurate. To understand how an online communication platform might support both surgeons and trans people seeking surgery, we conducted asynchronous online focus groups with 14 participants (ten trans community members and four gender-affirming surgeons). We found that gender-affirming surgeons and trans community members hold values in tensionvalues in alignment such as shared desires for information accuracy, transparency, and communication efficiency to support the surgical process. We contribute design implications for future online information sharing platforms that balance the needs of both trans patients and gender-affirming surgeons, including surgeon-verified information, surgeon anonymity, credential verification, searchable FAQs, and integrated community knowledge.
User engagement with digital health technologies among older adults with cancer: A systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis
International Journal of Nursing Studies, June 2026
Misun Hwang, Youmin Cho, Sun Young Park, Philip T. Veliz, Christopher R. Friese, Yun Jiang
Background: Although digital health technologies have the potential to improve health outcomes among older adults with cancer, their application remains limited in part due to low levels of user engagement. Understanding user engagement as an integrative concept that covers both subjective experiences (e.g., attention, interest, affect) and objective behaviors (e.g., amount, frequency, duration, depth of usage) is essential for enhancing engagement and improving its positive impact on health outcomes.
Objective: This review aimed to systematically synthesize qualitative evidence on the experiences and perspectives of user engagement with digital health technologies among older adults with cancer.
Method: This study conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, AgeLine, Web of Science, PsycINFO, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library for studies published from January 2011 to April 2025. This review was reported in accordance with the Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research (ENTREQ) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Two independent reviewers conducted article screening and quality appraisal. The eligible studies were assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist. Qualitative data were analyzed through Thomas and Harden's thematic synthesis approach.
Results: Of the 7090 articles screened, a total of 25 studies were included in this qualitative evidence synthesis. Overall, user engagement with digital health technologies emerged as a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing subjective experiences as well as cognitive and behavioral efforts, shaped by personal, contextual, and technological factors. Four themes were synthesized: (1) Recognizing the value of user engagement to promote health outcomes, (2) Emphasizing cognitive and behavioral efforts, (3) Experiencing emotional ambivalence, (4) Interacting with technological features and interface design.
Conclusion: This review highlights the multifaceted nature of user engagement with digital health technologies and identifies opportunities to enhance meaningful and sustainable engagement among older adults with cancer. Mitigating negative emotional experiences and addressing individual needs are essential for optimizing the design of digital health technologies and interventions in this population.
From procedures to peril: Towards risk transparency in information privacy for users
Telecommunications Policy, June 2026
Nico Ebert, Simone Fischer-Hübner, Soheil Human, Agnieszka Kitkowska, Konrad Kollnig, Jelena Mitrović, Shidong Pan, Thierry Schaltegger, Florian Schaub, Daniel Smullen, Lu Xian
Information privacy is an integral part of users' lives, as many digital services and their business models heavily rely on personal data. For example, conversational agents will use massive amounts of user conversations to hyper-personalize ads. Although privacy information is provided through policies and app notifications, and regulation increasingly adopts risk-based approaches, users remain largely uncertain about the risks they face. Design tweaks such as privacy icons or nutrition labels have yielded little improvement, as the central issue lies not in how privacy information is presented, but in what is omitted: the emphasis on disclosing data practices alone does not sufficiently reduce users’ uncertainty about potential harms. This paper develops an argument for complementing the current paradigm of “procedural transparency” with “risk transparency.” Risk transparency prioritizes the clear communication of privacy risks to individuals using digital services, similar to established practices in domains such as drug safety, public health, or consumer protection, where explicitly informing users about risks is considered the main priority. In this article, we discuss risk transparency terminology, illustrate how risk can be communicated, and review the evidence on the effectiveness of risk communication as well as its associated challenges. A shift towards privacy risk transparency aims to provide consumers and data subjects with more meaningful information that supports their informed decision-making in the data economy.
Moral Framing and Online Fundraising Outcomes: Evidence from GoFundMe Campaigns
Proceedings of the Twentieth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, May 2026
This study examines the relationship between moral framing and fundraising outcomes, encompassing both monetary and social support, through an analysis of 14,088 GoFundMe campaigns. Focusing on three moral foundations (care, fairness, and ingroup loyalty), we quantified the presence of these frames within campaign appeals. Our results show that the association between moral framing and campaign success varies significantly across fundraising categories. Specifically, negatively framed appeals emphasizing the harm experienced by the help-seeker were associated with a higher volume of donations and comments in the Emergency and Memorial categories, yet related to fewer donations in animal-related campaigns. Highlighting harm was not associated with a higher average donation amount per donor. Ingroup loyalty framing was positively associated with both donation volume and supporter engagement. This research extends the literature on moral communication in crowdfunding and offers practical implications for the design of online fundraising platforms to better facilitate prosocial interactions between fundraisers and supporters.
The Spread of Virtual Gifting in Live Streaming: The Case of Twitch
Proceedings of the Twentieth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, May 2026
Ji Eun Kim, Seura Ha, Sangmi Kim, Libby Hemphill
This paper examines how gifting spreads among viewers on Twitch, one of the largest live streaming platforms worldwide. On Twitch, users can purchase gift subscriptions for other viewers and often opt for community gifting, in which subscriptions are distributed to randomly selected viewers. Leveraging this random distribution as a natural experiment, we investigate the conditions under which gift recipients pay it forward to others. Our findings show that receiving a gift significantly increases the likelihood to pay it forward. This positive effect is amplified in single-recipient gifting events (i.e., one subscription is given to one individual per event) compared to mass distributions involving multiple recipients. Conversely, receiving a gift from a frequent gifter can attenuate the willingness to pay it forward. Finally, anonymous gifting has no significant influence on the spread of gifting. This research contributes to the literature on the spread of online prosocial behavior by providing robust empirical evidence and offers actionable insights for platform designers seeking to promote and sustain prosocial interactions in online communities.
Candidata: United States 2024 Elections Candidates and Social Media Handles
Proceedings of the Twentieth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, May 2026
Megan A. Brown, Maggie Macdonald, Josephine Lukito, Cameron Hickey, Kaitlyn Dowling, Myra Miranda
We introduce the Candidata dataset, a public archive of social media data for candidates for primary and general federal elections in the United States in 2024. The data collection spans multiple platforms, capturing the diverse ways candidates interact with potential voters, media, and other audiences. By documenting candidate behavior across platforms, this dataset provides an unprecedented resource for analyzing the full scope of social media use in political campaigns. The dataset includes the full list of candidates for federal elections in the United States in 2024, including candidate demographics, election information, and identifiers to link the candidates to other datasets. The social media data includes message content and metadata such as post timestamp and engagement metrics.
Repetition, regulation and reappraisal: Information behaviour in persistent coping with chronic illness in families.
Proceedings of the 16th ISIC - The Information Behaviour Conference, May 2026
Lindsay K. Brown, Tiffany Veinot
Introduction. Little is known about how specific information behaviours and coping strategies intersect within family groups over time, thus we report on a longitudinal investigation of the information and coping behaviours of families managing chronic illness.
Method. Longitudinal, mixed methods study with family group interviews, individual interviews, and surveys of HIV/AIDS or Type 2 diabetes patients and their family members (n=38 families and 97 individuals).
Analysis. Descriptive and correlational quantitative analyses of survey data. Multicycle coding of interview data.
Results. Families primarily used incidental information behaviours as they coped with chronic illness in the long-term, reflecting a persistent coping process. Persistent coping encompassed ongoing cognitive appraisal/reappraisal through daily monitoring and routinised, repetitive information behaviour. Seeking spiritual support, the most common coping strategy, and coping-related information behaviours, such as seeking, using or avoiding information to maintain hope or to provide cognitive reassurance, helped with emotional regulation in response to the stress of illness.
Conclusions. Information behaviour and coping in families managing chronic illness was routinised and focused on monitoring for changes as families continuously appraised whether their current coping strategies were sufficient. Information use was primarily focused on regulation of emotional responses to the illness-related stressor.
Motivational Framing in Networked Publics on Indian Social Media: A Case Study of #HindusUnderAttack
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, May 2026
Anmol Panda, Syeda Zainab Akbar, Julia Mendelsohn, Ceren Budak, Matthew Bui
Social movements employ various strategies to disseminate information, build support for their cause, and mobilize masses to take specific actions. One key tactical tool is framing. We utilize grounded theory to identify narrative, motivational, and issue-specific topical frames used in a digital networked public propagated by Hindu right-wing groups using #HindusUnderAttack on Twitter. We leverage pre-trained, finetuned RoBERTa models to identify the occurrence of each frame in the corpus. Relying on past works on the Hindutva movement, we build three hypotheses rooted in the use of motivational frames (i.e. calls to action). Our findings illustrate three critical insights into framing around #HindusUnderAttack: 1) politically aligned users deployed the motivational frame more frequently, 2) tweets about Bangladesh are more likely to contain motivational framing, and 3) motivational framing is associated with higher audience engagement through retweets. We also report important patterns of frame combinations. Finally, we situate our findings in the political economy of the region and extant literature of digital publics around the world.
Preparing for a Change in Global Workspace Culture —Impact Evaluation of Soft Skills Training for Bangladeshi ICT Professionals
Information Technology for Development, May 2026
Tsuyoshi Kano, Maheen Matin, Kentaro Toyama
In low- and middle-income countries, ICT professionals with soft skills have been recognized as potential leaders for economic growth, and professional experience abroad is an effective way to obtain soft skills. However, only a limited number of people have the opportunity to go abroad. In our research, we sought to understand whether soft skills such as those learned from international professional experience can be obtained through a domestic training course provided to Bangladeshi ICT professionals who aspired to work abroad. Through a randomized controlled trial, we found a mix of immediate effects of the training and latent effects that could be observed only after participants started working, especially when they worked abroad. Moreover, we find that training, while having some impact on conscientiousness, seems to be insufficient on its own—actual experience with the new environment seems to play a critical role. This study found evidence that the effectiveness of training strategies depends on the design of the training content, as well as when and where the effects of the intervention are expected to be observed.
251 Mind the gap: A comprehensive landscape analysis to Inform CTSA initiatives to support community-engaged research
Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, April 2026
Tara Truax, Polly Gipson Allen, Athena McKay, Patricia Piechowski, Tiffany Veinot
Objectives/Goals: This poster will provide key insights from a landscape analysis examining resources for community-engaged research (CEnR) across three University of Michigan (U-M) campuses. Highlights will include notable gaps and limitations and how the analysis will inform future U-M CTSA CE programming to support CEnR efforts at U-M. Methods/Study Population: A landscape analysis of CE resources available at U-M was conducted as part of a multipronged approach to inform CTSA CE services. Through a comprehensive review of U-M websites, the analysis identified 83 CEnR programs and services across Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn campuses of U-M. Programs were mapped by audience (faculty, staff, students, and community partners), topic, and service type. Assessment of distribution, website clarity, and ease of navigation further illuminated opportunities to improve support and efficiency to better meet the needs of those engaged in CEnR at U-M. Results/Anticipated Results: The landscape analysis identified 83 CEnR-related programs and services at U-M, most concentrated in Ann Arbor, and with the highest concentration in a few units. Data analysis services, resources for sustaining and sharing work, and structured grant feedback were relatively rare. Availability of funding for community-focused initiatives was infrequent and generally under $10,000. Over 70% of resources were available to faculty or students, 18% were available to the community, and just under 13% were open to staff. Findings will be used by MICHR to identify opportunities for future CE initiatives. Discussion/Significance of Impact: The poster outlines a landscape analysis framework and process that can be replicated by other CTSAs to assess institutional CEnR resources. This approach helps identify gaps and develop supports that meet the evolving needs of research teams and the community partners they collaborate with.
Legitimacy practices, algorithms, and the new bureaucratic quantification
Big Data & Society, April 2026
Amina A. Abdu, Abigail Z. Jacobs
By operationalizing how public policy is enacted, government algorithms play a key role of public administration—a role traditionally occupied in the United States by the wide range of bureaucrats and agency experts that comprise the administrative state. At stake is not just the functioning of these agencies but their perceived legitimacy, which has long been a subject of debate. While scholarship has drawn attention to the ways that agency algorithms can bolster (and undermine) legitimacy, this neglects the way that legitimacy is performed and negotiated. Focusing on the use of algorithms within federal agencies, we argue that agencies’ everyday legitimacy practices are a crucial site where the meaning of administrative legitimacy is negotiated. Through their routine operations, agencies shape the role of the administrative state by embracing certain tactics to defend their authority and autonomy from external intervention. The adoption of algorithms in agency operations marks an important site of negotiation, revealing a shift in what makes agency authority legitimate in the eyes of the state. Drawing on over 50 years of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, we empirically examine how algorithms reshape the values, goals, and logics of legitimacy. By systematically examining GAO's legitimacy practices, we show how the history of bureaucratic quantification, which we argue includes the adoption of algorithms, has changed how administrative legitimacy is understood and performed across the government, with value-laden consequences.
Structural assurance inflation: perspectives on the value of trustworthy digital repository certification
Journal of Documentation, April 2026
Purpose: This study examines how staff members from CoreTrustSeal-certified repositories characterize the primary value of Trustworthy Digital Repository certification, addressing a gap in empirical research about the value and/or benefits of certification.
Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted with staff members from CoreTrustSeal-certified repositories in 2020. Of the 171 certified organizations contacted, 88 completed responses were analyzed (53.98% response rate). Qualitative data from open-response questions about certification value underwent three-cycle coding analysis using NVivo, with interrater reliability checks conducted for the first two coding rounds.
Findings: Repository staff identified both internal and external certification benefits. Internal value derives from the certification process itself, including improved accountability, documentation, shared understanding, and risk mitigation. External value stems from having achieved certification, encompassing stakeholder communication, demonstrating trustworthiness, and competitive advantage. Notably, many respondents characterized certification as guaranteeing long-term preservation. Some grounded this guarantee in substantive improvements prompted by certification, while others located it in the credential itself. Both orientations reflect an inflated understanding of the structural assurances certification provides, or assurance inflation.
Originality/value: This provides the first comprehensive empirical examination of how staff from CoreTrustSeal-certified repositories value certification, identifying internal and external benefits. The study introduces the concept of assurance inflation, revealing how institutional stakeholders may overstate structural assurance guarantees, contributing new theoretical insights to research on trust and structural assurance in digital repositories.
Adolescent Perspectives on Social Connectedness in Their Local Communities: Implications for the Design of Technologies to Promote Individual and Collective Wellbeing
ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare, April 2026
Gabriela Marcu, Hana Chung, Veena Calambur, Jina Huh-Yoo
Social connectedness refers to a sense of belonging, perception that others care for you, and experience of relationships with others as fulfilling. Research shows that social connectedness has numerous benefits to mental and physical health. Yet a defining paradox of the digital age is that, despite humans being more technologically connected than ever, we experience alarming levels of loneliness, disengagement, and perceived disconnection from one another. This study holistically addresses how we might design technologies toward the outcome of meaningful social connection. To this end, we conducted focus groups with preteens and teens to elicit their perspectives on how tangible social practices lead to the intangible feeling that one is socially connected to their local community. Our analysis identified four types of inter-related practices through which community members enacted social connectedness: rapport-building, reciprocal, restorative, and authentic. Understanding these practices will help us to avoid designing technologies that unintentionally distract, disengage, divide, or isolate people from one another. Attending to these practices can help us design and incorporate technologies into communities in ways that complement and even enhance how they naturally enact social connectedness.
A Social Media Lens on the Needs and Concerns of Information Workers
ACM Transactions on Social Computing, April 2026
Jalehsadat Mahdavimoghaddam, Koustuv Saha, Julie Hui, Tawanna Dillahunt, Ebrahim Bagheri
Technological advancements have greatly impacted labor market dynamics, leaving a psychological impact on workers. Although some studies have explored such labor market changes and their effects on workers, they are limited to self-reported data, such as surveys and questionnaires. In this article, we propose a new approach for identifying information workers’ challenges and their impact on workers’ emotional well-being using large-scale, inexpensive, and near-real-time online social netwok data. While the research is situated within the broader Future of Work context shaped by technological change, the data collected and analyzed focus specifically on IT-related skills and topics discussed on Reddit, rather than on artificial intelligence itself. Analyzing over 700,000 Reddit posts related to IT occupations, we identify major labor market topics, including education and skill development, job search, and employment concerns, and examine how workers’ emotional expressions vary across gender and age groups. Our findings reveal systematic differences in how workers from different demographic groups disclose their needs and emotional states online. This work demonstrates the value of social media data as a complementary lens for understanding workers’ challenges in the knowledge economy. It highlights the potential of online communities as vehicles for peer support and well-being interventions.
Beyond attention: methylphenidate reduces dishonesty in healthy adults
Psychopharmacology, April 2026
Andreas Kappes, Alain Cohn, Michel André Maréchal, Anne-Marie Nussberger, Julian Savulescu, Philip Cowen, Michael Browning, M. J. Crockett
Rationale: Healthy adults increasingly use drugs to enhance cognitive performance. However, these drugs influence brain systems that have also been associated with dishonesty. Given the prevalent use of potentially performance-enhancing drugs in contexts susceptible to cheating, it is crucial to ascertain whether they have adverse effects on honesty.
Objectives: Our primary objective was to compare the effects of methylphenidate with those of placebo to determine the direction and magnitude of its potential influence on dishonest behavior. We furthermore examined the intuitions of people who use smart drugs about the effects of methylphenidate on cheating in a US representative sample.
Methods: We conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment to compare the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin), a popular performance-enhancing drug, and compared its effects with atomoxetine (Strattera), another performance-enhancing drug with a distinct pharmacological mechanism. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo (n = 52), methylphenidate (n = 49), or atomoxetine (n = 50). Subsequently, they performed a die-rolling task in which they could increase their earnings by dishonestly misreporting their outcomes. Additionally, a representative sample of 575 American participants indicated their performance-enhancing drugs use and intuitions about the effects of these drugs on dishonesty.
Results: Our findings show that, compared to the placebo condition, methylphenidate reduced dishonesty. This effect was not attributable to statistical fluctuations, demand effects, or domain-general mechanisms such as mood or attention. In addition, individuals who use drugs to enhance performance have limited intuitions about the impact of methylphenidate on dishonest behavior.
Conclusion: These results reveal an unforeseen consequence associated with methylphenidate and may have policy implications regarding the paradoxical relationship between the use of drugs for performance enhancement and their potential impact on honesty.
Access to Technology-Mediated Community Mental Health Care Among Low-Socioeconomic Status Consumers With Serious Mental Illness: Qualitative Study
JMIR Formative Research, April 2026
Alicia K Stone, Tiffany C Veinot
Background: Access to mental health care is critical for the effective management of serious mental illness (SMI), but consumers with low socioeconomic status (SES) have lower rates of service usage and worse retention in care. Digital technologies are often lauded as a way to bridge access gaps; however, little is known about how technology-mediated care may influence care access among low-SES consumers and how consumers use technology in care access.
Objective: This study aimed to examine the applicability of Levesque et al’s access framework to technology-mediated care for SMI and analyze how low-SES consumers use technology to facilitate care access. Furthermore, the study assesses whether and how technologies are involved in care access at multiple points within the process of accessing care.
Methods: This study used 2 qualitative methods: ethnographic observations at a mental health treatment court and interviews with low-SES consumers with SMI using community mental health care (n=14) and key informant interviews with health and service providers working with this population (n=14). Observations occurred from July 2022 through September 2023, and interviews occurred between January 2022 and May 2024. Data analysis involved both inductive and deductive coding approaches. Data from both the interviews and observations were analyzed in NVivo and further triangulated through analytic memos.
Results: Levesque et al’s framework required several extensions to accommodate technology-mediated care related to SMI for low-SES consumers: (1) a cyclical rather than linear trajectory; (2) simultaneous care acquisition from multiple health and service providers; (3) staying in care long-term; (4) identification of both one-time and ongoing health needs; and (5) an emergency pathway for entering care. Consumers often faced challenges related to the varied digital requirements of each provider and a dearth of integrative, patient-facing tools like portals. Within this context, some consumers use mobile apps, communication, and telehealth technologies across various care access stages. Consumers used technology by figuring out how to navigate technology-mediated care, especially by leaning on others, such as case managers, for support. These others provided consumers with temporary technologies, showed them how to use technologies, and accompanied them through the process of using technology for accessing care.
Conclusions: This study highlights that accessing care is iterative and ongoing, involving multiple forms of co-occurring service provision. A theoretical contribution of this work is its extension of Levesque et al’s care access framework to better reflect technology-mediated care for SMI among low-SES consumers. This work also underscores ongoing challenges for accessing technology-mediated care and the importance of human support in addressing access difficulties. Clinical implications include incorporating digital readiness assessments and providing comprehensive guidance on how consumers can effectively use technologies for care. Future work should investigate how technology-mediated care can make care access easier rather than harder.
Community intermediary strategies and tactics to close digital divides and enhance equitable technology use in everyday life
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), April 2026
Marcy G. Antonio, Alicia Stone, Tawanna Dillahunt, Lorraine Buis, Tiffany C. Veinot
Online technologies are required for accessing essential services, such as healthcare, transportation, and education. Challenges to online technology access can prevent resource-constrained communities from connecting to these services. Human intermediaries who act in the middle space between technology and the person using the technology may help to enhance access and use. Prior information science research has investigated formal intermediation offered by staff at community technology centers and public libraries. However, there is a lack of empirical and theoretical insight into how intermediaries help resource-constrained communities with technology in the informal and semi-formal settings of everyday life. Therefore, this study investigated how community intermediaries (i.e., friends, family members, and volunteers from resource-constrained communities) assist with accessing and using technology. Interviews with community intermediaries (n = 9) and those who received intermediary support (“beneficiaries,” n = 30) in a resource-constrained American city were conducted. Results show that intermediary strategies address four digital access levels: relating to sociocultural and psychosocial motivators; acquiring basic internet and technology; developing and updating skills for ongoing use; and problem-solving tasks for diverse use of evolving technology. Multiple tactics were used to implement these strategies. Findings can inform future training and infrastructure-enhancement initiatives for informal and semi-formal intermediaries from resource-constrained communities.
Algorithmic discrimination: a grounded conceptualization
Information, Communication, and Society, 2026 (online 2025)
This paper extends the literature on algorithmic discrimination to analyze the racialized harms and outcomes of online targeting. In addition to providing a genealogy, we argue that targeted ads are apparatuses designed to discriminate: to find patterns based on past racial trends; and selectively expose communities to resources (while excluding others), under promises of personalization and optimization. Rooted in a sociohistorical and infrastructural approach to examining algorithmic ethics and impacts, our approach establishes algorithmic discrimination as an analytic tool for drawing increased attention to the disparate outcomes of online targeting. Importantly, our approach expands on existing frameworks by conceptualizing algorithmic discrimination through the everyday lived experiences of individuals and communities disproportionately impacted by online targeting. We contend that a grounded conceptualization, coupled with critical race scholarship to historicize and contextualize these experiences, spotlights the complex and nuanced ways online targeting exacerbates the advertising industry’s fraught, racialized history of commercial data collection and analytics as well as how it expands larger systems of automated racial classification, surveillance, and inequality. Moreover, a grounded and historically situated conceptualization is especially effective for auditing and accounting for community – and systems-level harms perpetuated by algorithmic discrimination because it can foster more holistic and effective interventions.
Pre-prints, Working Papers, Articles, Workshops and Talks
IRIS: time-structured manifold projections
arXiv, May 2026
Brian Ondov, Chia-Hsuan Chang, Weipeng Zhou, Xingjian Zhang, Xueqing Peng, Yutong Xie, Huan He, Qiaozhu Mei, Hua Xu
High-dimensional biomedical data, such as cell-by-gene matrices, are increasingly generated temporally. However, Manifold Learning algorithms, like t-SNE and UMAP, cannot incorporate time-ordering in their layouts, obfuscating the dynamics of cell types or other classes. As a solution, we present IRIS, a new Manifold Learning algorithm that structures layouts both chronologically and by manifold topology. IRIS can visualize a wide range of dynamic biomedical data, including scRNA-seq, comparative metagenomics, and literature.
The Prosocial Ranking Challenge: Reducing Polarization on Social Media without Sacrificing Engagement
arXiv, March 2026
Jonathan Stray, Ian Baker, George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, Ceren Budak, Julia Kamin, Kylan Rutherford, Mateusz Stalinski, Tin Acosta, Chris Bail, Michael Bernstein, Mark Brandt, Amy Bruckman, Anshuman Chhabra, Soham De, Kayla Duskin, Sara Fish, Beth Goldberg, Andy Guess, Dylan Hadfield-Menell, Muhammed Haroon, Safwan Hossain, Michael Inzlicht, Gauri Jain, Yanchen Jiang, Alexander P. Landry, Yph Lelkes, Hongfan Lu, Peter Mason, Jennifer McCoy, Smitha Milli, Paul Resnick, Emily Saltz, Martin Saveski, Lisa Schirch, Max Spohn, Siddarth Srinivasan, Alexis Tatore, Luke Thorburn, Joshua A. Tucker, Robb Willer, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Manuel Wüthrich, Sylvan Zheng
We report the first direct comparisons of multiple alternative social media algorithms on multiple platforms on outcomes of societal interest. We used a browser extension to modify which posts were shown to desktop social media users, randomly assigning 9,386 users to a control group or one of five alternative ranking algorithms which simultaneously altered content across three platforms for six months during the US 2024 presidential election. This reduced our preregistered index of affective polarization by an average of 0.03 standard deviations (p < 0.05), including a 1.5 degree decrease in differences between the 100 point inparty and outparty feeling thermometers. We saw reductions in active use time for Facebook (-0.37 min/day) and Reddit (-0.2 min/day), but an increase of 0.32 min/day (p < 0.01) for X/Twitter. We saw an increase in reports of negative social media experiences but found no effects on well-being, news knowledge, outgroup empathy, perceptions of and support for partisan violence. This implies that bridging content can improve some societal outcomes without necessarily conflicting with the engagement-driven business model of social media.
Enabling Sensitive Conversations with Consent Boundaries: Moa, a Platform for Discussing PhD Advising Relationships
arXiv, April 2026
Jane Im, Kentaro Toyama
When an individual is harmed by someone in power, such as a workplace manager, it can help to identify allies--people who would offer sympathy, advice, or supportive action. However, ally discovery is fraught because the very people who might be most relevant--e.g., someone who reports to the same manager--might not be sympathetic and could potentially exacerbate the harm. We examine this problem in the specific context of PhD students navigating advising challenges and present a social media platform called "Moa" that brings together a number of features that we believe facilitate ally discovery. Moa's most novel element is an audience selection process that uses what we call consent boundaries, which allow users to flexibly define each post or comment's audience based on factors such as common social identity or lived experience, all while preserving anonymity--neither senders nor recipients learn each other's identities, even as the post reaches the right audience. A 3-week field study with 47 real-world users showed that the features in combination facilitated sensitive conversations about advising, with 22.6% of users using consent boundaries. We discuss both our overall "recipe" for systems for ally discovery and the benefits of a consent-centered approach to design.
Think Multilingual, Not Harder: A Data-Efficient Framework for Teaching Reasoning Models to Code-Switch
arXiv, April 2026
Eleanor M. Lin, David Jurgens
Recent developments in reasoning capabilities have enabled large language models to solve increasingly complex mathematical, symbolic, and logical tasks. Interestingly, while reasoning models are often trained to generate monolingual text, these models have also been observed to code-switch (i.e., mix languages). Prior works have either viewed code-switching as an undesirable error, attempted to control code-switching through modifications to input prompts or the output decoding process, or focus on narrow subsets of languages, domains, tasks, and models. We address these gaps by introducing the first linguistically and behaviorally motivated fine-tuning framework for identifying beneficial code-switched reasoning behaviors in large language models and teaching these models to code-switch more effectively for reasoning. First, we create and systematically analyze a dataset of reasoning traces from diverse models, languages, tasks, and domains to understand the types of code-switching behaviors found in existing reasoning models. Then, we develop fine-tuning interventions that teach reasoning models to code-switch based on our observations of helpful behaviors in existing models. We find that our framework can significantly increase beneficial code-switched reasoning behaviors in a data-efficient manner. Interestingly, we also find that code-switching behaviors in reasoning models can be modified by fine-tuning for tasks that do not directly demonstrate code-switching in reasoning (e.g., machine translation). Our work suggests that data-efficient interventions can instill helpful forms of code-switching behavior in reasoning models.
Assessing Affective Objectives for Communicative Visualizations
arXiv, April 2026
Elsie Lee-Robbins, Eytan Adar
Using learning objectives to define designer intents for communicative visualizations can be a powerful design tool. Cognitive and affective objectives are concrete and specific, which can be translated to assessments when creating, evaluating, or comparing visualization ideas. However, while there are many well-validated assessments for cognitive objectives, affective objectives are uniquely challenging. It is easy to see if a visualization helps someone remember the number of patients in a clinic, but harder to observe the change in their attitudes around donations to a crisis. In this work, we define a set of criteria for selecting assessments--from education, advocacy, economics, health, and psychology--that align with affective objectives. We illustrate the use of the framework in a complex affective design task that combines personal narratives and visualizations. Our chosen assessments allow us to evaluate different designs in the context of our objectives and competing psychological theories.
The Costs of Early-career Disciplinary Pivots: Evidence from Ph.D. Admissions
arXiv, March 2026
Sidney Xiang, Nicholas David, Dallas Card, Wenhao Sun, Daniel M Romero, Misha Teplitskiy
Scientific innovation often comes from researchers who pivot across disciplines. However, prior work found that established researchers face productivity penalties when pivoting. Here, we investigate the consequences of pivoting at the beginning of a research career -- doctoral admissions -- when the benefits of importing new ideas might outweigh the switching costs. Using applications to all PhD programs at a large research-intensive university between 2013-2023, we find that pivoters (those applying to programs outside their prior disciplinary training) have lower GPAs and standardized test scores than non-pivoters. Yet even conditional on these predictors of admission, pivoters are 1.3 percentage points less likely to be admitted. Examining applicants who applied to multiple programs in the same admissions cycle provides suggestive evidence that the admissions pivot penalty is causal. This penalty is significantly smaller for applicants who secure a recommendation from someone within the target discipline. Among those admitted and enrolled, pivoters are 12.9 percentage points less likely to graduate and do not show superior publication performance on average or at the tail. Our results reveal the substantial costs of disciplinary pivoting even at the outset of research careers, which constrain the flow of new ideas into research communities.
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