Trust-Enabled Privacy: Social Media Designs to Support Adolescent User Boundary Regulation

TL;DR

The paper addresses the challenge of adolescent self-disclosure on social media by reframing privacy as a trust-based, dynamic boundary regulation process. It combines an entry interview, diary study, and co-design sessions with 19 teens to identify barriers and co-create eight design concepts aimed at clarifying norms, enabling mutual audience control, and supporting low-stakes sharing. The Trust-Enabled Privacy Framework is proposed to connect platform design with trust calibration, boundary regulation, and relational outcomes, accompanied by design guidelines that shift privacy from a control problem to a relational practice. The findings offer concrete, teen-informed design directions that could empower adolescents to build closer relationships online while mitigating social risk and distrust, with implications for future platform features and policy considerations.

Abstract

Adolescents heavily rely on social media to build and maintain close relationships, yet current platform designs often make self-disclosure feel risky or uncomfortable. Through a three-part study involving 19 teens aged 13-18, we identify key barriers to meaningful self-disclosure on social media. Our findings reveal that while these adolescents seek casual, frequent sharing to strengthen relationships, existing platform norms often discourage such interactions. Based on our co-design interview findings, we propose platform design ideas to foster a more dynamic and nuanced privacy experience for teen social media users. We then introduce \textbf{\textit{trust-enabled privacy}} as a framework that recognizes trust -- whether building or eroding -- as central to boundary regulation, and foregrounds the role of platform design in shaping the very norms and interaction patterns that influence how trust unfolds. When trust is supported, boundary regulation becomes more adaptive and empowering; when it erodes, users resort to self-censorship or disengagement. This work provides empirical insights and actionable guidelines for designing social media spaces where teens feel empowered to engage in meaningful relationship-building processes.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: The proposed framework of Trust-Enabled Privacy.
• Figure 2: Screenshot of P01's Miro Boards Used During Co-Design (Exit) Interviews.
• Figure 3: High-fidelity mock-ups of the eight design approaches derived from the co-design study with teen participants. A higher-level taxonomy of the designs is available in Table \ref{['tab:designs']}. (a) Provides structured prompts that reduce ambiguity around what's socially acceptable to post, helping users navigate implicit norms; (b) Fosters low-pressure sharing through casual status updates (e.g., "pizza >>> sushi") and structured ones (e.g., with multiple choice options), reducing the burden of curating polished content and supporting low-stakes disclosure; (c) Enables segmentation of posts into interest-based categories like "Cute Dog Photo Dump" or "LGBTQ+," ensuring content is directed to the right audience and reducing ambiguity about relevance and who sees what; (d) Offers each user a dedicated sharing space from the outset, so they can post freely without fear of "clogging" others' feeds; (e) Allows users to communicate their availability or current mode (e.g., "On Vacation," "Digital Detoxing") with contextual status indicators, allowing users to preemptively explain their communication boundaries, minimizing misunderstandings and social misjudgments; (f) Encourages more expressive and deliberate engagement by offering a wide range of emoji reactions, moving beyond generic 'likes' to support nuanced, deliberate, and context-specific signaling; (g) Enforces mutual accountability by requiring users to agree to a space's rules before joining, reinforcing shared responsibility between sharers and viewers; (h) Cultivates a trusted environment by requiring users to agree to clear community guidelines before joining, enabling aligned participation and reinforcing shared norms.