This master’s thesis examines how social media platforms, with a focus on Instagram, can be adapted to meet the needs of teenagers. The primary goal was to protect young people and provide them with tools, helping them learn how to use social media consciously. For this purpose, features were created that are intended to promote positive content and focus on the well-being of young people.
An iterative design process was applied, based on the principles of design thinking, to ensure that the user remains at the center of the work. The theoretical foundations illuminate the psychological aspects of adolescent brain development, the effects of social media, as well as the mechanisms and dark patterns used by such platforms.
In a qualitative study, adolescents were interviewed about their use of social media platforms and invited to an interactive workshop to sort features by importance. The results were analysed using the qualitative content analysis according to Mayring and MAXQDA. The insights gained subsequently led to the development of an interactive prototype, which depicted functions based on an ‘Instagram Youth’ version using user stories. These were evaluated in usability testing in order to gather user feedback using Thinking Aloud and Likert scale questions. The work concludes with a toolkit that offers concrete recommendations for designing youth-friendly social media platforms. These are aimed at designers and developers to create an ethical, safe, and target group-oriented digital environment for young people.
