SocialXLab News

Sarah Ryu, a senior in Human-Computer Interaction, and Jonathan Tan, a senior in Computer Science, won 3rd place in the NJIT Dana Knox Student Research Showcase for their project, “Dot’s World: An Emotional Development Support Platform for Children.” Sarah started the design in her first year at NJIT and this was a culumination of that work. The design of this app was also presented last year (virtually) at the Interaction Design and Children Conference. Congratulations!

Ryu, S., Tan, J. M., & Wohn, D. Y. (2021). Dot’s world: An emotional development support platform for children. In Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC), 568-572.

We just published our final paper about how people discuss mental health on livestreams! We would never recommend that livestreams replace formal therapy but they can still be useful in lowering stigma, sharing resources and information, giving emotional support to others, etc.

Uttarapong, .J., LaMastra, N., Gandhi, R., Lee, Y-H., Yuan, C. W., Wohn, D. Y. (2022). Twitch Users’ Motivations and Practices During Community Mental Health Discussions In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 6, Issue GROUP, January 2022 Article No. 5, pp. 1–23 [PDF]

Gandhi, R., Cook, C. L., LaMastra, N., Uttarapong, J., Wohn, D. Y. (2021). An Exploration of Mental Health Discussions in Live Streaming Gaming Communities. Frontiers in Psychology, Human-Media Interaction

LaMastra, N., Uttarapong, J., Gandhi, R., Cook, C.L., & Wohn, D. Y. (2020). How a Live Streamer’s Choice in Played Game Affects Mental Health Conversations. In Proceedings of CHIPLAY 2020 [pdf]

Lee, Y-H., Yuan, C. W., & Wohn, D. Y. (2020). How Video Streamers’ Mental Health Disclosures Affect Viewers’ Risk Perceptions, Health Communication, DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1808405 [pdf]

PhD student Jie Cai presented research about how volunteer content moderators “profile” community violators at CSCW, a premier HCI conference on computer supported collaborative work. Jie has been studying the moderation practices of volunteer moderators on Twitch.

Cai, J., & Wohn, D. Y. (2021). After Violation But Before Sanction: Understanding Volunteer Moderators’ Profiling Processes Toward Violators in Live Streaming Communities. PACM HCI (CSCW 2021)

Meciel, Jon, and Dr.Wohn attended an energy conference in Houston that had a section about drone use. Saw a lot of cool drones and had some great Texas barbecue.

After more than a year of being remote we are back in person!

We are appreciating all the in-person interactions, such as eating food together.

Congratulations to Meciel Guisihan and Jonathan Tan for being accepted to the NSF icorps mini grant program as student entrepreneurs! They will be developing applications that help human drone communication.

This competitive program allows for students to explore the feasibility of new technologies/businesses through customer discovery. This is the lab’s sixth icorps mini grant!

Congratulations to Sarah Ryu and Jonathan Tan for their paper:

Dot’s world: An emotional development support platform for children.

Sarah presented this at the Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC).

Abstract: This project was started to explore ways we can utilize the benefits of human-robot facilitated therapy to support a child’s emotional development and identify needs for early intervention. As a result, we designed an app prototype called Dot’s World that features a chatbot that leads daily conversations about emotional well-being and facilitates emotional education exercises. We also created a companion app prototype for parents to involve them in their child’s emotional growth and identify needs for early intervention. To understand the current perceptions of emotional health and existing solutions for support, we conducted customer discovery interviews with parents and education professionals like teachers, psychologists, and counselors. Multiple factors in the interview process including variations in technology access as well as confidence in traditional methods of emotional development have led us to pivot our original vision. Interviews with professionals in the education system helped us to realize an apparent need for a platform providing socio-emotional tools for educators and improving communication channels within the child’s support system. We will be iterating on Dot’s World’s design and conducting more interviews to better understand and support the need of this new demographic.

The lab presented two papers and one poster at the International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences. The conference was held virtually.

Cai, J., Guanlao, C., & Wohn, D. Y. (2021). Understanding Rules in Live Streaming Micro Communities on Twitch. In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX), 290-295. [pdf]

Cai, J., Wohn, D. Y., & Almoqbel, M. (2021). Moderation visibility: Mapping the strategies of volunteer moderation in live streaming micro communities. In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX), 61-72. [pdf]

Uttarapong, J., Cai, J., & Wohn, D. Y. (2021). Harassment Experiences of Women and LGBTQ Live Streamers and How They Handled Negativity. In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX), 7-19 [pdf]

Dr. Wohn has done some interviews with media lately about the audio-only social media app Clubhouse.

Implication about Clubhouse’s new payment system (link). TBS eFM This Morning with Henry Shinn. April 14, 2021

• “Clubhouse may be social media’s future. What’s all the hype about?” by Bobby Allyn. NPR. Feb. 11, 2021 https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966503986/clubhouse-may-be-social-medias-future-whats-all-the-hype-about

• “Are Content Moderators Ready for Voice-Based Chat Rooms? It’s a tall task, but getting it right is critical” by Hal Koss, Built In. Oct. 27, 2020 https://builtin.com/product/content-moderation-voice-audio-chat

We have a new publication that explores how discussions about mental health happen in live streaming gaming communities. It’s quite an easy read- please check it out!

Gandhi, R., Cook, C. L., LaMastra, N., Uttarapong, J., Wohn, D. Y. (2021). An Exploration of Mental Health Discussions in Live Streaming Gaming Communities. Frontiers in Psychology, Human-Media Interaction