Jeremy Birnholtz

How People Form Folk Theories of Social Media Feeds and What it Means for How We Study Self-Presentation

2018-04-19 · 230 citations

Self-presentation is a process that is significantly complicated by the rise of algorithmic social media feeds, which obscure information about one's audience and environment. User understandings of these systems, and therefore user ability to adapt to them, are limited, and have recently been explored through the lens of folk theories. To date, little is understood of how these theories are formed, and how they tie to the self-presentation process in social media. This paper presents an explora…

'Too Gay for Facebook'

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2018-11-01 · 203 citations

Most US social media users engage regularly with multiple platforms. For LGBTQ+ people, this means making self-presentation decisions not just on one platform, but many. These choices are made in the face of sometimes-overlapping platform environments, which can have consequentially different norms, audiences, and affordances. Moreover, many LGBTQ+ users face high stakes in online self-presentation, due to the risk of stigmatization of their LGBTQ+ identity, increasing the importance of self-pre…

Queer(ing) HCI

2019-04-30 · 72 citations

The increasing corpus on queer research within HCI, which started by focusing on sites such as location-based dating apps, has begun to expand to other topics such as identity formation, mental health and physical well-being. This Special Interest Group (SIG) aims to create a space for discussion, connection and camaraderie for researchers working with queer populations, queer people in research, and those using queer theory to inform their work. We aim to facilitate a broad-ranging, inclusive d…

"I Don't Want Them to Not Know"

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2019-11-07 · 72 citations

Dating platform research often focuses on people's decisions about when to reveal certain aspects of themselves to others, or self-disclosure. One example is deciding what to include in one's profile and what to reveal in chat conversations or in person. Transgender people face a particularly acute challenge in self-disclosure, but we know little about how they experience it on dating platforms. Revealing trans status can result in physical or emotional harm, but is also often considered necessa…

Geosocial Networking Application Use, Characteristics of App-Met Sexual Partners, and Sexual Behavior Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents Assigned Male at Birth

The Journal of Sex Research · 2019-12-17 · 55 citations

Although many sexual and gender minorities (SGM) assigned male at birth (AMAB) use sexual networking applications intended for adult sexual minority men, little is known about adolescents' use of these technologies and characteristics of their online-met partners. We conducted an online survey of 219 sexually experienced SGM AMAB adolescents in the USA aged 15-17 (39.3% racial/ethnic minority; 74.9% gay; 94.1% cisgender male). Questions assessed app use patterns, partner-seeking behaviors on sex…