A Controlled Social Media SimulationEnvironment for Psychological Research

Sammanfattning

Social media platforms have become a central part of everyday life and a standard interaction format for communication and information consumption. Their familiar interaction patterns make them a valuable instrument for fundamental research in psychology, providing an ecologically valid setting in which core psychological processes can be studied under controlled conditions. However, existing tools that emulate social networks for psychological research are often limited by restricted customisability of content and interface, constrained access to fine-grained interaction data, and privacy concerns regarding data storage and ownership. To address these limitations, this project introduces tablet-social-simulator, a Reactbased application that emulates an authentic social media feed while providing experimental control, privacy-preserving data handling, and structured behavioural data collection. The application was developed through an iterative, client-centred design process in which key design decisions were validated and refined across multiple feedback cycles. To support both primary user groups, researchers and participants, the system is split into two interfaces: a tablet-based participant interface that presents a Facebook-inspired feed with text, image, and video posts, and a browser-based researcher interface for authoring and managing study content as well as inspecting and exporting study data. The evaluation indicated that the simulator was perceived as highly usable and a realistic approximation of an actual social media environment, supporting intuitive and natural participant behaviour. In addition, the researcher admin interface enabled non-technical users to configure highly controlled studies and to export structured behavioural data for analysis.