PolAlpha Aalto University pilot study
Online polarizing content consumption and mental well-being Privacy Notice
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Aalto University

INFORMATION SHEET FOR PARTICIPANTS

Thank you for considering taking part in our research. This sheet explains what the study involves so that you can decide whether you would like to participate. Please read it carefully and feel free to contact us if anything is unclear.

  1. Project name

    Online polarizing content consumption and mental wellbeing

  2. What the study involves and who is running it

    The study is led by two Principal Investigators at Aalto University (Finland):

    • Dr. Talayeh Aledavood — Aalto University, Department of Computer Science
    • Dr. Juhi Kulshrestha — Aalto University, Department of Computer Science

    The research group has extensive experience in computational social science, digital health, and the study of online behaviour and well-being. The team has previously conducted peer-reviewed studies that combine self-report data with digital trace data (such as smartphone use, web browsing, or social media activity) to understand mental health.

    In this study, we collect three kinds of information from you:

    • Email address when you register for the study
    • Surveys you complete online (one longer baseline survey and one exit survey).
    • Smartphone data collected automatically through the AWARE app, which you install on your phone for the duration of the study. AWARE collects screen text from a fixed pre-approved list of applications on your phone — four social-media apps (YouTube, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram) and five LLM chat apps popular in Finland (ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity) — plus app usage patterns, accelerometers, phone battery, message and phone metadata, location (which your phone works out from GPS together with the Wi-Fi and mobile networks around it), screen usage (e.g., time and duration of screen on/off events), application installations, device information, and timezone. Screenshots are no longer collected. Screen text is collected only from the apps listed above — nothing from any other app on your phone.
    • Voluntary data donations from a YouTube, Bluesky, TikTok, or Instagram account. Donating these is completely optional, and you can take part in the rest of the study even if you do not donate them.
    • Name and Personal identity codes: only for tax-authority reporting for remuneration
  3. Why we are doing this research

    By looking at how people consume online content alongside how they feel, we hope to gain insight into how digital technology is shaping our lives in today's socio-technical society.

    This study is a pilot with two goals. First, the data we collect will be analysed in their own right to start examining the links between smartphone behaviour, exposure to online content, and mental health and well-being. Second, the pilot lets us test whether the data-collection methodology and tools work well in practice for participants and produce data of the quality needed to answer our research questions. What we learn here, including your feedback on the experience, will also be used to refine the design of a larger follow-up study on the same topic.

  4. Who is funding the research

    The research is funded by the Research Council of Finland. The funders have no role in the design, conduct, analysis, or reporting of the study.

  5. Compensation

    You will be compensated for your time spent participating in the study with monetary compensation as follows:

    • €20 for completing the baseline questionnaire and installing the AWARE app, and keep using the app for one month
    • An additional €5 (total €25) for completing all follow-up questionnaires and keeping the app installed throughout the study
    • Up to €10 if you choose to donate your third-party platform data (YouTube, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram) as compensation for the additional time required to complete the data export and donation process. This step is entirely optional.
  6. Your participation is voluntary

    Taking part is completely voluntary. You can decide not to take part, or you can stop at any point during the study, without giving a reason and without any negative consequences for you.

    How to stop:

    • You can drop out at any time without giving a reason, through this website or by email.
    • Uninstall the AWARE app from your phone at any time to stop sensor and screen-text data collection.
    • Decide not to donate (or to donate only part of) your social media (Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) data — donation is optional.

    You can withdraw from the study at any time — without giving a reason and without any negative consequences. You can do so on the study website or by emailing the research team at [data admin project email]. After withdrawal, no new data will be collected from you.

    You may also request deletion of your research data by emailing the research team at [data admin project email], including the email address you used to register. If your data has not yet been used in any analysis, it will be fully deleted. If your data has already been used in an analysis, deletion is no longer possible, but your direct identifiers and your entry in the pseudonymisation key are destroyed as part of the deletion.

  7. Possible risks and how we minimise them

    There are no major known risks to taking part. Because the AWARE app collects on-screen text and sensor data — including your location, which your phone works out from GPS together with the Wi-Fi and mobile networks around it — and because data exports can contain personal information, we take the following precautions:

    • All data is stored on secure servers managed by Aalto University and accessible only to authorised members of the research team.
    • Your data is pseudonymised: a randomly generated participant ID is used instead of your name in all data files.
    • Screenshots are not collected. The app captures screen text only from the listed apps, and nothing from any other app on your phone. Before the research team sees the text, an automatic step removes direct-identifier patterns from it (such as email addresses and phone numbers).
    • Before donating any data, you have the chance to review the export and remove anything you do not want to share.
    • You can pause AWARE data collection at any time by switching off your phone or uninstalling the app.
    • Results will be reported only at an aggregated level, so that no individual participant can be identified in any publication.
    • You can pause or skip survey questions if any topic feels uncomfortable, and you can stop participating at any time (see Section 6).
  8. Getting in touch with the research team during the study

    You can contact us at any time before, during, or after the study. If you have a question while you are completing a survey or while AWARE is running on your phone, or any other questions related to the project, please use the email address below.

    Research team email: A research team email address will be established for this project before data collection begins.

  9. What participation will look like for you

    Here is what to expect if you decide to take part:

    • Who can take part: 20-30 Aalto University students or personnel (18+) living in Finland
    • Duration: about 3 months of active data collection per participant.
    • Baseline web survey: about 40 minutes. It asks about your background, your smartphone and media use, your mental health and well-being, and your political and social attitudes.
    • Exit survey: 1 shorter online survey of about 30 minutes, sent to you at the end of the study (after 3 months), to measure how you are feeling over time.
    • AWARE app: you install it on your phone at the start of the study, and it runs in the background, collecting screen text from a pre-approved list of apps (four social-media apps and five LLM chat apps, listed in Section 2), app usage patterns, accelerometers, phone battery, message and phone metadata, location (from GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile network), screen usage (e.g., time and duration of screen on/off events), application installations, device information, and timezone, until the end of the 2-4 months. Screenshots are no longer collected.
    • Optional data donation: at the beginning of the study, you may choose to share your YouTube, Bluesky, TikTok, and Instagram data exports with us. We will guide you through how to download and (optionally) review them before sending.
    • Where: you can complete the surveys and run the app from any place where you feel comfortable, using your own devices.

    If you would like help installing the AWARE app or would prefer to talk with a coordinator through the study procedure, you can also attend an optional onboarding session with a project coordinator — either in person on the Aalto campus in a booked meeting room, or via an Aalto-hosted online video call (Aalto Zoom or Aalto Teams). The session is offered to every participant, is arranged at a time you choose, and is not recorded. Attending the session is optional if you can install the app on your own from the study website; the session is arranged on request if you would like installation help.

Thank you for taking the time to read this information sheet. Your participation will help us better understand how digital technology shapes our well-being.