Keywords

Youth Online Safety; HCI; Stakeholders; Community; Risk Detection; Participatory Design

Abstract

Contemporary research and industrial youth online safety solutions focus on the primary stakeholders in youth online safety, i.e. the youth, and their parents. However, the voices of secondary stakeholders in youth online safety have not garnered the same attention even though they play a pivotal role in protecting youth online. These secondary stakeholders in youth online safety perform various roles such as entrepreneurs creating technological solutions for youth online safety, educators, therapists, and clinicians, all sharing the goal of imparting youth with life skills needed to navigate online and offline modalities. This dissertation focuses on bringing into focus the views of secondary stakeholders in online safety and uncovers the minimum capabilities needed from technological systems to engage secondary stakeholders to work collaboratively on youth online safety solutions. Through a user study, we first examine the different sociotechnical approaches used by secondary stakeholders to keep youth safe online, while overcoming key challenges associated with these approaches. A closer look at the feasibility of using technological solutions for youth online safety is then presented through the unique perspectives of youth social service providers who work with underprivileged youth. Using these insights, a conceptual online community for secondary stakeholders is presented followed by its examination in a user study to uncover their views on using youth online safety communities for collaboration. The results show that, while technological solutions for youth online safety could help protect youth online and assist secondary holders in identifying when youth online risk exposure has occurred, serious privacy, data handling, and ethical concerns need to be addressed to make youth online safety solutions and communities more broadly accepted. Stakeholders have a preference for a trusted non-partisan organization to lead collaborative efforts using an open-innovation methodology to mitigate these issues.

Completion Date

2024

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Hughes, Charles

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Computer Science

Degree Program

Computer Science

Format

application/pdf

Language

English

Rights

In copyright

Release Date

August 2025

Length of Campus-only Access

1 year

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Campus-only Access)

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Accessibility Status

Meets minimum standards for ETDs/HUTs

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Restricted to the UCF community until August 2025; it will then be open access.

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