Jessica Vitak

• PhD, Media & Information Studies, Michigan State
• Professor (Full) at University of Maryland, College Park

Online social support, with its novel opportunities for coping, is especially important for those experiencing isolation. Daughters-in-law in Azerbaijan are isolated and have inadequate support due to patriarchal and patrilocal norms, amplified when they experience infertility. This study considers an online community where supportive communication...

Children are exposed to technology at home and school at very young ages, often using family mobile devices and educational apps. It is therefore critical that they begin learning about privacy and security concepts during their elementary school years, rather than waiting until they are older. Such skills will help children navigate an increasingl...

Privacy is an important topic in HCI and social computing research, and the theory of contextual integrity (CI) is increasingly used to understand how sociotechnical systems-and the new kinds of information flows they introduce-can violate privacy. In empirical research, CI can serve as a conceptual framework for explaining the contextual nature of...

Smart cities take advantage of advances in ubiquitous computing and big data analytics to build and deploy technologies that increase efficiency and sustainability. However, benefits derived from smart cities are not equally distributed. In this paper, we consider how smart city initiatives can better serve and engage marginalized communities throu...

Fueled by Internet-of-Things technologies and spanning a wide range of sensors, speakers, and cameras, smart homes promise to make our lives easier and automate routine tasks. From speakers to security cameras, smart home devices (SHDs) answer our questions, monitor our home environment, and conserve energy. They also collect significant data, rang...

With the rapid shift to remote learning in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents, teachers, and students had to quickly adapt to what scholars have called "emergency remote learning" (ERL). This transition required increased reliance on digital tools, exacerbating privacy and security threats associated with expanded data collection and...

An exemplar of human-machine communication, voice-based assistants (VBAs) embedded in smartphones and smart speakers simplify everyday tasks while collecting significant data about users and their environment. In recent years, devices using VBAs have continued to add new features and collect more data—in potentially invasive ways. Using Communicati...

Social media provides unique opportunities for researchers to learn about a variety of phenomena—it is often publicly available, highly accessible, and affords more naturalistic observation. However, as research using social media data has increased, so too has public scrutiny, highlighting the need to develop ethical approaches to social media dat...

In recent years, the CHI community has seen significant growth in research on Human-Centered Responsible Artificial Intelligence. While different research communities may use different terminology to discuss similar topics, all of this work is ultimately aimed at developing AI that benefits humanity while being grounded in human rights and ethics,...

Significant research has examined social media users' self-presentation strategies, both within a single account and across multiple platforms. Few studies, however, have considered how users' self-presentation varies across multiple accounts on a single platform. In this survey study, we examine how Instagram users manage content sharing decisions...

Evaluating the well-being implications of social media use is challenging for many reasons, including finding appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches that do not exclusively center either the technology (and its structural features) or the user (and their motivations, psychological disposition, etc.). We argue that many research quest...

Late adolescence represents an important life stage where children are becoming more independent and autonomous from their parents but are not quite old enough to go out on their own. Teenagers are also avid users of mobile devices and social media and actively use their smartphones to connect with friends and share their lives. Much of the researc...

The internet of things (IoT) and smart home technologies are per- vasive in the U.S. and abroad. Devices like smart speakers, cameras, thermostats, and vacuums promise to save consumers time and energy and to make tasks easier. Many devices also provide signif- icant benefits through accessibility features that offer hands-free options, voice comma...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities and new tensions related to workplace surveillance. Monitoring workers via digital tools to analyze everything from keystrokes to email and social media to the websites they visit is increasingly common, and the shift to remote work in the early days of the pandemic led many employers to consider...

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps towards OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles:...

Past research suggests Facebook use is linked to perceptions of social capital, a concept that taps into the resources people gain from interactions with their social network. In this study, we examine a sample of public Facebook status updates (N=20,000) for instances in which users request a response from their network. These attempts to mobilize...

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles:...

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles:...

Research using online datasets from social media platforms continues to grow in prominence, but recent research suggests that platform users are sometimes uncomfortable with the ways their posts and content are used in research studies. While previous research has suggested that a variety of contextual variables may influence this discomfort, such...

Frequent public uproar over forms of data science that rely on information about people demonstrates the challenges of defining and demonstrating trustworthy digital data research practices. This paper reviews problems of trustworthiness in what we term pervasive data research: scholarship that relies on the rich information generated about people...

Crises, whether society-wide or personal, are endemic to the human condition. Yet academia and its associated institutions persist in having insufficient scaffolding to support its members during periods of crisis. No one knows this more acutely than academic caregivers of children, elders, disabled adults, and other loved ones with special needs....

Researchers and policymakers advocate teaching children about digital privacy, but privacy literacy has not been theorized for children. Drawing on interviews with 30 families, including 40 children, we analyze children’s perspectives on password management in three contexts—family life, friendship, and education—and develop a new approach to priva...

In February 2016, Facebook launched Reactions, an interactive feature expanding the Like button to include five additional emotional responses: Love, Sadness, Anger, Wow, and Haha. In this article, we examine users’ feedback about this new feature and identify important design implications of this significant modification of Facebook's interface. W...

The COVID-19 global pandemic led governments, health agencies, and technology companies to work on solutions to minimize the spread of the disease. One such solution concerns contact-tracing apps whose utility is tied to widespread adoption. Using survey data collected a few weeks into lockdown measures in the United States, we explore Americans’ w...

In this position article, we synthesize various knowledge gaps in information privacy scholarship and propose a research agenda that promotes greater cross-disciplinary collaboration within the iSchool community and beyond. We start by critically examining Westin’s conceptualiza- tion of information privacy and argue for a contextual approach that...

The global coronavirus pandemic has raised important questions regarding how to balance public health concerns with privacy protections for individual citizens. In this essay, we evaluate contact tracing apps, which have been offered as a technological solution to minimize the spread of COVID-19. We argue that apps such as those built on Google and...

As sensitive transactions continue to move online, public libraries are becoming a critical resource to patrons without access to the internet. This paper shares insights on how library staff negotiate privacy risks when working with patrons handling sensitive and private information. Based on findings from an analysis of library policies on techno...

Fitness trackers are an increasingly popular tool for tracking health and physical activity. Their benefits hinge on ubiquitous data collection and the algorithmic processing of personal fitness information (PFI). While PFI can reveal novel insights about users’ physical activity, health, and personal habits, it also contains potentially sensitive...

Information and communication technologies play a critical role at home, school, and work for people of all ages. At the same time, use of these technologies can present challenges to privacy and security. In this study, we apply the concept of funds of knowledge to understand how families develop knowledge and skills around using technology and pr...

Elementary school educators increasingly use digital technologies to teach students, manage classrooms, and complete everyday tasks. Prior work has considered the educational and pedagogical implications of technology use, but little research has examined how educators consider privacy and security in relation to classroom technology use. To better...

In this position paper, we synthesize various knowledge gaps in information privacy scholarship and propose a research agenda that promotes greater cross-disciplinary collaboration within the iSchool community and beyond. We start by critically examining Westin's conceptualization of information privacy and argue for a contextual approach that hold...

With the influx of content being shared through social media, mobile apps, and other digital sources—including fake news and misinformation—most news consumers experience some degree of information overload. To combat these feelings of unease associated with the sheer volume of news content, some consumers tailor their news ecosystems and purposefu...

Voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have seen tremendous growth in recent years on smartphones and as standalone devices in people’s homes. While research has examined the potential benefits and drawbacks of these devices for IPA users, few studies have empirically evaluated the role of privacy and trust in individual decision t...

The platformization of households is increasingly possible with the introduction of “intelligent personal assistants” (IPAs) embedded in smart, always-listening speakers and screens, such as Google Home and the Amazon Echo. These devices exemplify Zuboff’s “surveillance capitalism” by commodifying familial and social spaces and funneling data into...

Technology platforms, including learning management systems and monitoring tools, have taken root in schools. While seen as bringing efficiency or innovation into classrooms, they also offer greater capacities for surveillance. Drawing on findings from focus groups with teachers in the US, we explore how teachers’ use of technology platforms produc...

Fitness trackers are an increasingly popular tool for tracking one’s health and physical activity. While research has evaluated how these mobile devices can improve health and well-being, few studies have empirically evaluated users’ privacy concerns that stem from the collection, aggregation, and sharing of personal fitness information (PFI). In t...

In the U.S., consumers increasingly turn to the internet and mobile apps to complete essential personal transactions, ranging from financial payments to job applications. This shift to digital transactions can create challenges for those without reliable home internet connections or with limited digital literacy by requiring them to submit sensitiv...

Children ages 8--12 spend nearly six hours per day with digital content, but they receive little formal instruction related to managing privacy online. In this study, we explore how games and storytelling can inform the development of resources to help children learn about privacy online. We present results from three co-design sessions with a univ...

Children under age 12 increasingly use Internet-connected devices to go online. And while Internet use exposes people to privacy and security risks, few studies examine how these children perceive and address such concerns. To fill this gap, we conducted a qualitative study of 18 U.S. families with children ages 5-11. We found that children recogni...

The parallel rise of pervasive data collection platforms and computational methods for collecting, analyzing, and drawing inferences from large quantities of user data has advanced social computing research, investigating digital traces to understand mediated behaviors of individuals, groups, and societies. At the same time, methods employed to acc...

This study examines the impact of privacy defaults and expert recommendations on smartphone users' willingness to pay for “privacy-enhanced” features on paid applications using a 2 (privacy premium default/no privacy premium default) x 2 (privacy expert recommendation/non-privacy expert recommendation) experimental design. Participants (N = 309) co...

As social media becomes more deeply embedded into our daily lives, researchers are examining how previously private disclosures and interactions are manifesting in semi-public spaces. This study evaluates how sites like Facebook may help users grieve following the loss of a family pet. Through an empirical study of Facebook users, we evaluate surve...

ASKfm is a social media platform popular among teens and young adults where users can interact anonymously or semi-anonymously. In this paper, we identify the modes of disclosure and interaction that occur on the site, and evaluate why users are motivated to post and interact on the site, despite its reputation for facilitating cyberbullying. Throu...

As organizational security breaches increase, so too does the need to fully understand the human factors that lead to these breaches and take the necessary steps to minimize threats. The present study evaluates how three sets of employee characteristics (demographic, company-specific, and skills-based) predict an employee's likelihood of becoming a...

The popularity, availability, and ubiquity of information and communication technologies create new opportunities for online harassment. The present study evaluates factors associated with young adult women's online harassment experiences through a multi-factor measure accounting for the frequency and severity of negative events. Findings from a su...

Through a series of ACM SIGCHI workshops, we have built a research community of individuals dedicated to networked privacy--from identifying the key challenges to designing privacy solutions and setting a privacy-focused agenda for the future. In this workshop, we take an intentional pause to unpack the potential ethical questions and concerns this...

The concept of affordances has been increasingly applied to the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizational contexts. However, almost no research operationalizes affordances, limiting comparisons and programmatic research. This article briefly reviews conceptualizations and possibilities of affordances in general an...

This study aims to clarify inconsistencies regarding the term affordances by examining how affordances terminology is used in empirical research on communication and technology. Through an analysis of 82 communication-oriented scholarly works on affordances, we identify 3 inconsistencies regarding the use of this term. First, much research describe...

In the aftermath of a traumatic mass casualty event, a community's resources are strained, while its needs for tangible, emotional, and informational support are elevated. Social media may serve to bridge the distance between the locally affected community and those outside who are willing to offer support. This exploratory study uses Twitter as a...

In the aftermath of disasters, communities struggle to recover from the physical and emotional tolls of the event, often without needed social support. Social media may serve to bridge the distance between the affected community and those outside who are willing to offer support. This exploratory study uses Twitter as a lens for examining gratitude...

While social media platforms enable individuals to easily communicate and share experiences, they have also emerged as a tool for cyberbullying. Teenagers represent an especially vulnerable population for negative emotional responses to cyberbullying. At the same time, attempts to mitigate or prevent cyberbullying from occurring in these networked...

While there has been considerable academic work over the past decade on preserving and enhancing digital privacy, little of this scholarship has influenced practitioners in design or industry. By bringing together leading privacy academics and commercial stakeholders, this workshop builds on previous gatherings at ACM conferences and in the broader...

Pervasive information streams that document people and their routines have been a boon to social computing research. But the ethics of collecting and analyzing available—but potentially sensitive—online data present challenges to researchers. In response to increasing public and scholarly debate over the ethics of online data research, this paper a...

In recent years, research on online impression management has received considerable scholarly attention, with an increasing focus on how the affordances of new media shape the impression management process. However, scant attention has been paid to how individuals perform their identity online in places where surveillance is the norm—and punishment...

As social network sites grow and diversify in both users and content, tensions between users’ audience composition and their disclosure practices become more prevalent. Users must navigate these spaces carefully to reap relational benefits while ensuring content is not shared with unintended audiences. Through a qualitative study of highly engaged...

This study investigates the relationship between life contexts, SNS use, and psychological well-being, by focusing on Korean mothers’ interactions on a popular social network site (SNS), KakaoStory. Through analysis of survey and interview data, we find (1) a positive relationship between KakaoStory use and mothers’ perceptions of positive relation...

Building on recent work in privacy management and disclosure in networked spaces, this two-day workshop examines networked privacy challenges from a broader perspective by (1) identifying the most important issues researchers will need to address in the next decade and (2) working to create actionable solutions for these privacy issues. This worksh...

This chapter considers the mechanisms by which social network site (SNS) use is associated with social capital processes, such as supporting beneficial interactions, information exchanges, and relationship maintenance. In doing so, we consider both the high-level affordances of SNSs, such as the persistence and visibility of content, as well as spe...

New information and communication technologies (ICTs) challenge existing beliefs regarding the exchange of social resources within a network. The present study examines individuals’ perceived access to social, emotional, and instrumental resources by analyzing relational and Facebook-specific characteristics of dyadic relationships. Results suggest...

Research in computer-mediated communication has consistently asserted that Facebook use is positively correlated with social capital. This research has drawn primarily on Williams’ (2006) bridging and bonding scales as well as behavioral attributes such as civic engagement. Yet, as social capital is inherently a structural construct, it is surprisi...

This study explores the relationship between perceived bridging social capital and specific Facebook-enabled communication behaviors using survey data from a sample of U.S. adults (N=614). We explore the role of a specific set of Facebook behaviors that support relationship maintenance and assess the extent to which demographic variables, time on s...

The increasing ubiquity of information and communication technologies has dramatically impacted interpersonal communication and relationship maintenance processes. These technologies remove temporal and spatial constraints, enabling communication at a distance for low to no physical costs. Research has established that technologies such as email su...

Guided by the underlying question of how--if at all--the self-disclosure process varies online, the present study explores the self-disclosure practices of 26 American graduate students on Facebook through in-depth interviews. Building on work by Derlega and Grzelak [12] on self- disclosure goals and focusing on the affordances of the site, finding...

Social adjustment plays a critical role in student persistence at college. Social media such as Facebook, used widely by this population, have the potential to positively enhance students' transition to college by encouraging connection and interaction among peers. The present study examines the role Facebook plays in students' social adjustment du...

Past research suggests Facebook use is linked to perceptions of social capital, a concept that taps into the resources people gain from interactions with their social network. In this study, we examine a sample of public Facebook status updates (N=20,000) for instances in which users request a response from their network. These attempts to mobilize...

The social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) predicts individuals in depersonalized settings associate with those with whom they share a salient social identity and disassociate from others. We challenge the strict ingroup/outgroup bifurcation used in prior research and posit that ingroup perceptions differ across distinct (i.e., mod...

Research has established a positive relationship between Facebook use and perceptions of social capital, a construct that describes the total resources − both potential and actual − available in one’s social network. However, the process through which social capital conversions occur is unclear. This study presents results from semi-structured inte...

Research has identified a link between Facebook use and bridging social capital, which speaks to the informational resources provided by a diverse network of connections. In order to explicate the mechanism through which Facebook may help individuals mobilize these embedded informational and support resources, this study explores the role of bridgi...

Although Facebook is the largest social network site in the U.S. and attracts an increasingly diverse userbase, some individuals have chosen not to join the site. Using survey data collected from a sample of non-academic staff at a large Midwestern university (N=614), we explore the demographic and cognitive factors that predict whether a person ch...

Many scholars have discussed their use of theory and metatheory to study the social nature of information. The approaches brought to the table by doctoral students and junior faculty will continue to shape the future of the information field with a social perspective. This panel will present the theoretical frameworks used by four emerging informat...

A large body of research argues that self-presentation strategies vary based on audience. But what happens when the technical features of Web sites enable—or even require—users to make personal disclosures to multiple audiences at once, as is often the case on social network sites (SNSs)? Do users apply a lowest common denominator approach, only ma...

In this paper, we explore the relationship between Facebook users' privacy concerns, relationship maintenance strategies, and social capital outcomes. Previous research has found a positive relationship between various measures of Facebook use and perceptions of social capital, i.e., one's access to social and information-based resources. Other res...

Facebook has become an increasingly important tool for people engaging in a range of communication behaviors, including requesting help from their social network to address information needs. Through a study of 614 staff members at a large university, we show how social capital, network characteristics, and use of Facebook are related to how useful...

This study explores how norms on social network sites evolve over time and how violations of these norms impact individuals’ self-presentational and relationship goals. Employing Expectancy Violations Theory (Burgoon, 1978) as a guiding framework, results from a series of focus groups suggest that both the content of the violation and the users’ re...

This poster presents a preliminary analysis of data collected from staff personnel at a large U. S. university regarding their use of the social network site (SNS) Facebook in their personal and professional lives. Sixty-five percent of online American adults now have a profile on a SNS, and Facebook is increasingly utilized in organizational setti...

1. Introduction During the past decade usage of online social network sites has grown dramatically, now rivaling search engines as the most visited Internet sites (Experian Hitwise, 2010). With the rise of such mega‐sites as Facebook, which by itself now boasts more than 400 million active users around the world (Facebook Press Room, 2010), online...

Social network sites such as Facebook are often conceived of as purely social spaces; however, as these sites have evolved, so have the ways in which students are using them. In this study, we examine how undergraduate students use the social network site Facebook to engage in classroom-related collaborative activities (e.g., arranging study groups...

Cyberslacking, typically defined as the use of Internet and mobile technology during work hours for personal purposes, is a growing concern for organizations due to the potential in lost revenue; however, the majority of academic research in this area has focused on a limited number of cyberslacking behaviors and/or employed small, non-representati...

Social network sites (SNSs) are becoming an increasingly popular resource for both students and adults, who use them to connect with and maintain relationships with a variety of ties. For many, the primary function of these sites is to consume and distribute personal content about the self. Privacy concerns around sharing information in a public or...

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, social network sites such as Facebook allowed users to share their political beliefs, support specific candidates, and interact with others on political issues. But do political activities on Facebook affect political participation among young voters, a group traditionally perceived as apathetic in regard to...

Social network sites (SNSs) are bundles of information and communication tools that can be used to support collaboration, among other uses. In a qualitative study of adult Facebook users (N=18), we found that some users did turn to the site for information uses that are embedded in social activities, including organizing events, establishing online...

While the growing popularity of social network sites (SNSs) reflects a desire for individuals to move their offline networks to an online space, there are a number of organizational and social settings in which online interactions precede offline meetings. When this happens, interactants may only have limited information about their partners on whi...

Social network games embedded within social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook facilitate play with "Friends" within the SNS. In this study, we look at different dimensions of how game play contributes to relationship initiation and development using qualitative data collected from adult Facebook users (N=18). Our data suggest that interpersonal...

Research has established a positive relationship between measures of Facebook use and perceptions of social capital. Like other social network sites, Facebook is especially well-positioned to enhance users' bridging social capital because it lowers coordination costs associated with maintaining a large, potentially diverse network of Friends. The r...

Social network sites (SNSs) are becoming an increasingly popular resource for both students and adults, who use them to connect with and maintain relationships with a variety of ties. For many, the primary function of these sites is to consume and distribute personal content about the self. Privacy concerns around sharing information in a public or...