1 Million in Linked NSF Grants to Support the BullyBlocker Project

The grant proposal Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Toward Well-being by Design in Social Media, led by Yas Silva (PI at Loyola University Chicago as Lead Site),  Deborah Hall (PI at Arizona State University) and Huan Liu (Co-PI at ASU), has received funding from the National Science Foundation under the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program. The new linked awards will provide near $1M across LUC ($500,001) and ASU ($499,988) to expand the team’s research toward creating safer and healthier social media experiences.

Through the integration of computer science and psychology, this project seeks to better understand how problematic online behaviors can be identified and prevented and the connections between specific features of social media and well-being. Major components include developing models for the early detection of problematic online behaviors, designing social media features that prioritize users’ well-being (rather than attention), and studying vital aspects of problematic online behavior, such as how cyberbullying and indicators of decreased well-being elicit bystander intervention.

Learn more about the awards and project with these links:
NSF award – LUC (Lead Site):  https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2435164

NSF award – ASU:  https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2435165

BullyBlocker Project: https://bullyblocker.cs.luc.edu/