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Social Media Should Feel Like Minecraft, Not Instagram: Youth Visions for Meaningful Social Connections through Fictional Inquiry

JaeWon Kim, Hyunsung Cho, Fannie Liu, Alexis Hiniker

TL;DR

This study tackles the problem of meaningful online connection for youth by decoupling design from current platform paradigms. It employs Fictional Inquiry within a Hogwarts-inspired narrative to elicit aspirational, non-real-world design primitives from 23 participants aged 15–24, focusing on presence, shared experiences, and playfulness. The authors synthesize six themes—intuitive navigation, shared experiences, communal ambience, nuanced self-presentation, intentional engagement, and playfulness—into a conceptual vision called Social Media at Hogwarts (SMH). They argue that FI can reframe the discourse around social media, shift youth from passive subjects to empowered designers, and reveal concrete design directions that emphasize spatiality, boundary control, and ambient sociality. The work highlights a methodological shift toward defamiliarization to surface relational logics often obscured by feed-centric platforms, with implications for designers and policymakers seeking more humane, youth-centered mediated connections.

Abstract

We conducted co-design workshops with 23 participants (ages 15--24) to explore how youth envision ideal remote social connection. Using Fictional Inquiry (FI) within a Harry Potter-inspired narrative, we found that youth perceive a disconnect between platforms labeled ``social media'' (like Instagram) and those where they actually experience meaningful connections (like Minecraft or Discord). Participants envisioned an immersive platform prioritizing meaningful social connection through presence and immersion, natural self-expression, intuitive spatial navigation leveraging physical-world norms, and playful, low-stakes opportunities for friendship development. We synthesize these visions into six themes articulating relational needs that current platforms systematically marginalize. The FI method proved effective in generating innovative ideas while empowering youth by fostering hope and agency over social media's future. Our findings challenge ``doom'' narratives by reframing social media's harms as outcomes of specific design choices, demonstrating how design research can reopen space for imagining more supportive forms of mediated connection.

Social Media Should Feel Like Minecraft, Not Instagram: Youth Visions for Meaningful Social Connections through Fictional Inquiry

TL;DR

This study tackles the problem of meaningful online connection for youth by decoupling design from current platform paradigms. It employs Fictional Inquiry within a Hogwarts-inspired narrative to elicit aspirational, non-real-world design primitives from 23 participants aged 15–24, focusing on presence, shared experiences, and playfulness. The authors synthesize six themes—intuitive navigation, shared experiences, communal ambience, nuanced self-presentation, intentional engagement, and playfulness—into a conceptual vision called Social Media at Hogwarts (SMH). They argue that FI can reframe the discourse around social media, shift youth from passive subjects to empowered designers, and reveal concrete design directions that emphasize spatiality, boundary control, and ambient sociality. The work highlights a methodological shift toward defamiliarization to surface relational logics often obscured by feed-centric platforms, with implications for designers and policymakers seeking more humane, youth-centered mediated connections.

Abstract

We conducted co-design workshops with 23 participants (ages 15--24) to explore how youth envision ideal remote social connection. Using Fictional Inquiry (FI) within a Harry Potter-inspired narrative, we found that youth perceive a disconnect between platforms labeled ``social media'' (like Instagram) and those where they actually experience meaningful connections (like Minecraft or Discord). Participants envisioned an immersive platform prioritizing meaningful social connection through presence and immersion, natural self-expression, intuitive spatial navigation leveraging physical-world norms, and playful, low-stakes opportunities for friendship development. We synthesize these visions into six themes articulating relational needs that current platforms systematically marginalize. The FI method proved effective in generating innovative ideas while empowering youth by fostering hope and agency over social media's future. Our findings challenge ``doom'' narratives by reframing social media's harms as outcomes of specific design choices, demonstrating how design research can reopen space for imagining more supportive forms of mediated connection.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 56 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Beyond Moral Panic: From Panic Narratives to Design Opportunity
  4. Meaningful Social Connection Online, and Why Mainstream Platforms Miss It
  5. What counts as meaningful connection
  6. Connection-seeking on platforms optimized for other gratifications
  7. Recognizing and Overcoming Social Media Design Fixation
  8. Alternative Paradigms and Methods for Imagining Beyond Platform Templates
  9. Sociality in games and multi-space online communities
  10. Spatial social technologies and place-based interaction
  11. Youth-centered design and fiction-based methods for escaping fixation
  12. Method
  13. FI as a Tool for Imaginative Design Exploration
  14. Addressing Design Fixation Through FI
  15. Material: The Narrative Framework
  16. ...and 41 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Youth's Understanding of Social Media Interactions
  • Figure 2: Miro board mapping real-life relationships to Hogwarts-themed groups, designed to immerse participants in the Hogwarts-inspired FI narrative.