Illuminate the darkness with your social media data
We are examining the messaging behavior in the context of war in relation to mental well-being.
Explanation video
This is the explanation video of the whole study. Please watch it.
What is this about?
We want to better understand the messaging behavior of people affected by war and the impact of digital social interactions on mental well-being.
You can support us by anonymously donating your chat meta-data from Facebook.
Why should I participate?
Receive feedback
You will receive graphs on your messaging behavior, such as in which chats you write the most, when are you the most active, how fast you reply, etc. This study is not intended to be a clinical-psychological diagnosis.
Stay anonymous
We will ask you to donate anonymized chat data (message length, message timestamp and pseudonyms of the chat participants). We will have no access to any names or message texts.
Support research
The results of this study will contribute to the overall goal of better understanding the effects of social interactions on human well-being.
How do I participate in the study?
This study will be completely anonymous and online. To participate in this study, we will ask you to donate your anonymized messages and complete questionnaires. After downloading the interaction data from facebook, the questionnaires take about 30 minutes of your time.
Can I drop out during the study?
First things first: participation is entirely voluntary. You can drop out at any point during the study. Please note that due to the anonymous nature of the data, we cannot identify and delete your data after participation. If you feel unwell at any time and want to talk to someone, please press the „Get support" button to receive contact information of people and organizations that can help you.
How do I donate my data?
Data request: You request your social media data from Facebook Messenger and download it to your device.
Anonymization: We will remove all content (text message, pictures, audio-files) from your data and limit it to metadata (e.g. length and timestamp of message). Your name, as well as the names of other participants, will get replaced by random pseudonyms (eg. "James" → "anonymous13"). You may examine the anonymization of your data before uploading it to our servers.
Storage: Only anonymized and reduced data will be uploaded to one of our secure servers.
The purpose of this website is to inform you about the background and process of this online study. If any questions or concerns arise during the process, please write to the principal investigator (Prof. Dr. Hanna Drimalla, AG Multimodal Behavior Processing, Technische Fakultät, Universität Bielefeld, drimalla@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de, Tel. +49 521 106-12043)
