Ethical User Interfaces: Exploring the Effects of Dark Patterns on Facebook

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Facebook's interface features, including dark patterns, influence user privacy, behavior, and mental health, emphasizing the need for ethical design in social media platforms.

Contribution

It combines empirical analysis and surveys to link interface design with privacy concerns and mental health issues, advocating for more ethical user interfaces in SNS.

Findings

Interface features impact user privacy and behavior

Increased privacy concerns lead to behavior changes

Cases of addiction and mental health issues are reported

Abstract

Many researchers have been concerned with whether social media has a negative impact on the well-being of their audience. With the popularity of social networking sites (SNS) steadily increasing, psychological and social sciences have shown great interest in their effects and consequences on humans. In this work, we investigate Facebook using the tools of HCI to find connections between interface features and the concerns raised by these domains. Using an empirical design analysis, we identify interface interferences impacting users' online privacy. Through a subsequent survey (n=116), we find usage behaviour changes due to increased privacy concerns and report individual cases of addiction and mental health issues. These observations are the results of a rapidly changing SNS creating a gap of understanding between users' interactions with the platform and future consequences. We explore how HCI can help close this gap and work towards more ethical user interfaces in the future.