RESEARCH
My research explores how children use the multiplayer platform Roblox to develop friendships and strengthen existing relationships. Through a participatory and multidisciplinary approach, I will engage Canadian children’s thoughts and ideas in understanding whether Roblox is an effective platform for children to maintain and develop strong friendships, and how the level of salience in the communication affordances compares in facilitating connection. I will perform an in-depth platform analysis of Roblox to inform a nuanced understanding of how the company’s expected-use environment shapes the capabilities and constraints of communication on Roblox, and further, an exploration of how children’s communication behavior deviates from intended usage (Light et al., 2018). Using the findings from my platform analysis, I will interview and survey Canadian children about their experiences socializing on Roblox, expanding my understanding of how the varying affordances assist or restrict the development and strengthening of friendships. My interview methodology is informed by social presence theory (Short et al., 1976), tie strength (Granovetter, 1973; Petróczi et al., 2007), and bridging and bonding capital (Ellison et al., 2007), providing me with a framework with which to analyze perceived closeness, abilities to connect, and how these perceptions change between low- and high-salience communication methods (i.e text in-game chat vs. voice proximity chat). Following interview coding and data analysis of survey responses, I will conduct a critical analysis informed by actor-network theory and technology appropriation theory that will examine how Roblox’s communication affordances actively shape how children communicate, if and why the interviewees appropriate the affordances by deviating from expected use, and finish with design recommendations that center children’s desired form of socialization on the platform (Latour, 2005; Tchounikine, 2025).
In my senior honors thesis, I examined if the “Time to BeReal” feature on the social media app BeReal functions as an attention capture deceptive feature, or if it is essential to community building on the platform. Using qualitative research methods focusing on user-experience, I am attempting to understand the strength of force used in the feature’s design to influence user behavior. You can read it here.
A continuation of the Summer Digital Workshop (2023), the After School Workshop is a participatory design research program aimed at empowering middle-school girls through digital citizenship and literacy. This program covers 7 separate topics relating to digital wellbeing, spread out over the course of 5 weeks. I served as a workshop developer and facilitator for the Deceptive Design & AI, and User-Centered Design Prototyping sessions.
Each summer, the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Lab through the Wellesley Centers for Women hosts a week-long digital workshop for middle-school girls. This workshop is a participatory-design project that attempts to teach girls about the intersections of digital technology and developmentally relevant topics. For Summer 2023, our workshop focused on the intersection of AI and Body Image. As a workshop facilitator, I helped girls aged 11-13 prototype an algorithm for Pinterest that promotes emotional regulation. I collaborated in writing the research paper for our project, which focused on how our methods impacted participants.
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