User Reactions Research Articles

Beyond dislike counts: How YouTube users react to the visibility of social cues

This study investigates the impact of YouTube’s 2021 policy, which hides dislike counts and limits a form of negative social feedback. It examines how this change affects social media herding behavior—the tendency of users to align with the majority opinion. We adopted a mixed-method approach, incorporating an online experiment that simulates the YouTube interface and an Interrupted Time Series analysis of real-world user reactions, to assess how the policy affects user engagement. Specifically, we looked at how the absence of one-sided digital cues, combined with content characteristics and individual user predispositions, influences user behavior. Our findings suggest that YouTube’s initiative to boost platform positivity had limited success: user responses were more influenced by their ideological leanings than by visible digital cues; Hiding dislikes reduced commenting frequencies and inadvertently increased negative expression. These results highlight the stronger role of ideological beliefs over social cues in shaping engagement, challenging the presumed impact of audience conformity and the negativity bias on social media dynamics.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND CHALLENGES OF SMART CLOTHING - A REVIEW FROM THE LIFE CYCLE

Despite the potential of smart clothing, which allows collecting and processing data about the user's conditions and reactions, the environment in which they are inserted and connecting with other artifacts around them, aiming to facilitate daily activities and improve quality of life, problems environmental issues already faced by the clothing sector can be worsened due to the incorporation of electronic components in clothing. Design can contribute to reversing this situation through interventions within the scope of the concept of these products as well as in the associated services and systems. This article presents a review of the state of the art on the topic, with an emphasis on identifying the main environmental impacts and challenges of smart clothing from the perspective of the product life cycle, to contribute to the informational quality of the Designers involved in the project of this product category.

Reactions of News Producers and Users According to Video Sentiments on YouTube Before and After Confirmation of Political Rumors about North Korea Leader

Reactions of News Producers and Users According to Video Sentiments on YouTube Before and After Confirmation of Political Rumors about North Korea Leader

Application of Topic Modelling Technology to the Analysis of Social Media Comments in the Context of State Identity Politics Research

In the situation of a shrinking field of public politics and a crisis of political trust, citizens may seek an alternative arena for presenting their own point of view. The social Internet space serves as a virtual projection of public contradictions and acts as an arena for the presentation and confrontation of political interests. At the same time, the increasing state presence in virtual space and the growing trust to online sources of information make social media an important channel for promoting certain patterns of political interpretations. The aim of this paper is to analyse the reactions of social media users to discover their attitudes towards the main narratives of contemporary identity politics of the Russian state. We used the Topic modelling method to study citizens’ reactions to various aspects of state identity politics. The total number of comments in the collected database is 8,023 (09/2022‑09/2023). In almost all the identified topics we can note the polarity of citizens’ opinions, examples of which are given in the article. However, there are a few topics where the users’ opinion is quite consolidated; for example, the image of the Crimean bridge on the cover of new textbooks was widely supported in comments, while the topic of traditional values, on the contrary, evokes negative feelings and shows “public tiredness”. Despite the limitations described in the conclusion of the article, the study demonstrates the high potential of applying the method of topic modelling to the analysis of the reactions of social media users.

Mapping the Online Reviews Sentiment Landscape: An Exploration of Emotion Spectrum in User Reviews of Mobile Apps

Mobile applications have emerged as powerful platforms for consumers and understanding the attitudes and reactions of users by content and emotional sides in a mobile context becomes crucial for marketing decision-making. The study with comprehensive approach aims to analyze the emotion spectrum in mobile applications user reviews context by examining specific emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, neutral, sadness, surprise). Sentiment analysis methodology (through "Emotion English DistilRoBERTa-base" transformers-model) is employed on the dataset of 302.647 reviews from 34 mobile application categories. Categorical examination of emotions indicates that neutrality is the dominant emotion category, followed by joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, and anger emotion categories, while the fear category is the least dominant category. According to polarity examination; negative polarity reviews are associated with neutral, sadness and disgust emotions; neutral polarity reviews are associated with neutral and sadness; positive polarity reviews are associated with neutral and joy emotion categories. Final part of analysis includes examination of emotions individually and mobile app categories which each emotion with the highest frequency of dominance are presented. The distribution rates of emotions and the individual relationships of emotions with different application categories can shed light on future academic research and marketing decision-making.

User participation in digital accessibility evaluations: Reviewing methods and implications

Although laws and standardization bodies promote user participation in digital accessibility evaluations, people with disabilities still consider themselves excluded from this process. One reason could be the lack of systematized knowledge about evaluation methods involving users. This article seeks to understand how and for what purpose digital accessibility evaluations with user participation were conducted in the scientific literature from 2018 to 2021. Three types of user participation emerged: 1) user-based usability testing to evaluate task accomplishment, user reactions and interface qualities; 2) interviewing users to assess the local and social factors impacting digital service accessibility; 3) using questionnaires or crowdsourcing to check the compliance of certain interfaces with accessibility standards. Participants are primarily chosen based on their functional impairments and, to a lesser degree, their project-related skills, biographical information, technology habits, among other criteria. The comprehensive user insights gained with these methods are judged to be positive whereas the lack of representativeness of the selected user samples is found to be regrettable. The article finally discusses the definitions of accessibility and disability that underpin these methodologies.

Investigating the Correlation Between Presence and Reaction Time in Mixed Reality.

Measuring presence is critical to improving user involvement and performance in Mixed Reality (MR). Presence, a crucial aspect of MR, is traditionally gauged using subjective questionnaires, leading to a lack of time-varying responses and susceptibility to user bias. Inspired by the existing literature on the relationship between presence and human performance, the proposed methodology systematically measures a user's reaction time to a visual stimulus as they interact within a manipulated MR environment. We explore the user reaction time as a quantity that can be easily measured using the systemic tools available in modern MR devices. We conducted an exploratory study (N = 40) with two experiments designed to alter the users' sense of presence by manipulating place illusion and plausibility illusion. We found a significant correlation between presence scores and reaction times with a correlation coefficient -0.65, suggesting that users with a higher sense of presence responded more swiftly to stimuli. We develop a model that estimates a user's presence level using the reaction time values with high accuracy of up to 80%. While our study suggests that reaction time can be used as a measure of presence, further investigation is needed to improve the accuracy of the model.

A Study on the Characteristics of Sports Athletes' YouTube Channels and User Reactions.

This study examined the content characteristics and user responses of athlete-run sports YouTube channels, providing empirical insights for content production strategies and contributing to the development of athlete-run sports YouTube channels. Content analysis was conducted on 3306 videos posted on 20 popular YouTube channels of South Korean athletes from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021. The formal characteristics analyzed included video length, the presence of foreign language subtitles, paid advertisements, and information sources. The content characteristics examined were the types of sports events, main content themes, and whether the content matched the athlete's sport. Results revealed significant differences in content characteristics and user responses based on whether the athletes were active or retired. This study's distinctive contribution lies in highlighting the evolving role of athletes as content creators and providing strategic implications for enhancing the competitiveness of athlete-run sports YouTube channels. Future research should consider a broader range of sports YouTubers and a wider variety of YouTube channels to gain comprehensive insights into the sports content ecosystem on this platform.

The voices of Francis

This article offers a contribution to the definition of discourse of resistance based on an argumentative analysis of the reactions of users of the website X, formerly Twitter, to a post by Vatican News. This post, from December 2023, publicizing the Church’s apparent openness to the blessing of homosexual couples, authorized by Pope Francis, sparked a controversy, polarizing reactions, mostly disapproval. Drawing on the concept of heteronormative order, the article asks whether these counter-discourses can be considered as discourse of resistance to an established order, in this case that of Pope Francis. The article concludes that although these comments constitute counter-discourses and their speakers seem to perceive themselves as resisting a perverted order, they could not be qualified as discourses of resistance, because they rather relate to doxic argumentation. Finally, the article suggests that a discourse of resistance should be counter-doxic and requires a political definition to be fully understood and operationalized.

RGB Color Model: Effect of Color Change on a User in a VR Art Gallery Using Polygraph.

This paper presents computer and color vision research focusing on human color perception in VR environments. A VR art gallery with digital twins of original artworks is created for this experiment. In this research, the field of colorimetry and the application of the L*a*b* and RGB color models are applied. The inter-relationships of the two color models are applied to create a color modification of the VR art gallery environment using C# Script procedures. This color-edited VR environment works with a smooth change in color tone in a given time interval. At the same time, a sudden change in the color of the RGB environment is defined in this interval. This experiment aims to record a user's reaction embedded in a VR environment and the effect of color changes on human perception in a VR environment. This research uses lie detector sensors that record the physiological changes of the user embedded in VR. Five sensors are used to record the signal. An experiment on the influence of the user's color perception in a VR environment using lie detector sensors has never been conducted. This research defines the basic methodology for analyzing and evaluating the recorded signals from the lie detector. The presented text thus provides a basis for further research in the field of colors and human color vision in a VR environment and lays an objective basis for use in many scientific and commercial areas.

Impact of TikTok Store Closing: Communication Analysis and User Response

In this study, we investigate the impact of the TikTok Shop closure, focusing on communication analysis and user responses. Engaging active participation from respondents, we gained deep insights into how this closure decision affects users in the context of online communication. The research methods involved surveys and qualitative analysis of user responses. The study's results show a variety of user reactions, including disappointment, frustration, and adaptation to the change. Communication factors, such as the clarity of information and user engagement, were identified as key elements influencing their perceptions of this decision. In-depth analysis of the data highlights the crucial role of communication in managing negative impacts and the potential to rebuild user trust through transparency and better interaction. Additionally, this research explores broader implications related to crisis management and communication strategies of digital platforms when facing sudden changes. The findings indicate that effective and transparent communication can mitigate negative reactions and help users adapt to unexpected changes. Thus, this study not only provides a deep understanding of user responses to the TikTok Shop closure but also emphasizes the importance of effective communication in overcoming challenges in a dynamic digital environment. These findings are expected to offer valuable guidance for practitioners, researchers, and decision-makers involved in managing similar digital platforms. The conclusion of this study is that a good communication strategy can minimize negative impacts and enhance user trust, ultimately contributing to the long-term success of digital platforms.

Authoritarian responsiveness online: social media strategy of Russian regional governance centers

ABSTRACT This article is dedicated to authoritarian responsiveness and feedback mechanisms that autocratic regimes exploit to keep citizens loyal, using the example of Russia. The study aims to describe how the Russian government uses online feedback mechanisms in political communication. I focus on the activities of the Regional Governance Centers, i.e. project management offices designed to establish communication between authorities and citizens. This communication system represents a proactive approach where authorities initiate engagement with citizens rather than passively receiving complaints. I analyze the content of VK communities operated by these project management offices, where they report how the authorities solve citizens’ problems initially indicated by citizens on social media. The explorative text analysis shows that Regional Governance Centers mostly report on how authorities process citizens’ complaints and solve problems indicated by them. They also promote live Q&A sessions with regional and local authorities and advertise financial support that different groups of citizens can get from the government. Posts containing information about how to communicate directly with officials, warnings about bad weather conditions, information about financial assistance from the government, and self-promotion of these Regional Governance Centers are the most popular in getting user reactions.

Cyberaddiction to TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose The purpose of this study is to shed light on the determinants of TikTok cyberaddiction during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the resulting attitudinal and intentional reactions of users. Design/methodology/approach An online survey of 305 young TikTok users was conducted to test the research hypotheses. Data was analyzed through a partial least sqaures approach. Findings The results highlight the mediating role of cyberaddiction to TikTok in the relationship between psychological disorders (anxiety and loneliness) and attitude toward TikTok. Indeed, it was found that anxiety and loneliness contribute to TikTok cyberaddiction. The latter would have a positive effect on attitude toward TikTok, which decreases in the presence of fear of missing out (FOMO). It was also proven that attitude toward TikTok has a positive impact on attitude toward the brands promoted on this platform, resulting in an increase in purchasing intentions. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore interesting to replicate it to see if the research model can be still validated in the absence of an emergency situation. Testing the model on a larger target, including older TikTok users, could also lead to interesting findings. Practical implications Knowledge of the psychological factors behind cyberaddiction should not be seen as an opportunity to take advantage from addicted shoppers’ vulnerability. Managers should rather limit communication campaigns on TikTok during crisis periods, undertake retargeting actions by sparing vulnerable TikTok users and avoid stimulating anxiety and loneliness which can lead to cyberaddiction and compulsive purchases. Originality/value This study sheds light on the central role of cyberaddiction to TikTok in the relationship between psychological disorders and users’ reactions, during a pandemic. It focused on the moderating role of FOMO on the relationship between determinants of cyberaddiction and attitude toward TikTok. Escape theory and attachment theory were used and adapted to the context of social media.

The impact of self-conscious emotions on the continuance intention of digital voice assistants in private and public contexts

Digital voice assistants (DVAs) are application programs that can understand and interpret natural language voice commands. They are embedded in various products like smartphones and smart speakers and have thus become integral in everyday life, interpersonal communications, and social relationships. Despite users tend to humanize DVAs, emotions that arise in interpersonal interactions such as self-conscious emotions (i.e., pride, shame, guilt, and vicarious embarrassment) and their influence on human-machine interaction remain unstudied. Grounding on regulatory focus theory, we argue that these emotions are fundamental for promoting or preventing future DVA use. Additionally, drawing on social influence theory, we contend that the influence of self-conscious emotions on continuous DVA use varies across specific usage situations. Thus, we extend the expectation-confirmation model with self-conscious emotions and empirically compare user reactions between different social scenarios (alone and with friends in private vs. public places). Analyzing 860 DVA user responses through structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis, our findings reveal that pride consistently positively influences continuance intention across all social contexts. Furthermore, shame acts as an important inhibitor of continuance intentions in public, while guilt inhibits continuance intentions in private places. Vicarious embarrassment, however, does not exhibit significant effects in any scenario. These results carry valuable implications for both research and management in understanding and optimizing DVA user experiences.

Analyzing user reactions using relevance between location information of tweets and news articles

In this study, we analyze the extent of user reactions based on user’s tweets to news articles, demonstrating the potential for home location prediction. To achieve this, we quantify users’ reactions to specific news articles based on the textual similarity between tweets and news articles, showcasing that users’ reactions to news articles about their cities are significantly higher than those about other cities. To maximize the difference in reactions, we introduce the concept of News Distinctness, which highlights the news articles that affect a specific location. By incorporating News Distinctness with users’ reactions to the news, we magnify its effects. Through experiments conducted with tweets collected from users whose home locations are in five representative cities within the United States and news articles describing events occurring in those cities, we observed a 6.75% to 40% improvement in the reaction score when compared to the average reactions towards news for outside of home location, clearly predicting the home location. Furthermore, News Distinctness increases the difference in reaction score between news in the home location and the average of the news outside of the home location by 12% to 194%. These results demonstrate that our proposed idea can be utilized to predict the users’ location, potentially recommending meaningful information based on the users’ areas of interest.

Immersive reality for robotic surgical training: a pilot study using 3D visors for immersive view of the operating field.

Immersive intracorporeal vision is a key feature of robotic surgery, limited today to only one trainee per operation when the dual console is available. We developed a tool that provides a virtually unlimited number of surgeons with the operator's view, with the possibility to also watch the surgeon's hand movements and the operating table. In this study, we aim to assess trainees' reaction to this innovative training method. Medical students and surgery residents were offered an immersive experience with head-mounted devices, showing a didactic video in a 360° virtual space with 3D intracorporeal robotic vision, the surgeon's hand movements and the surrounding operating room during a robotic rectal resection with total mesorectal excision. Subsequently, participants were asked to fill a questionnaire evaluating the user's reaction to the new training tool including the validated System Usability Scale (SUS) and Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), and non-validated questions. 102 participants took part in the training and the assessment questionnaires, 94 (92%) medical students and 8 (8%) surgery residents. Users' feedback was overall positive. In the engagement and intention to use items, almost 90% of the respondents voted for a complete or near complete agreement. The median SUS score was 80 [IQR 70-90]. The median SSQ score was 44.88 [IQR 22.44-82.28]. Exposing trainees to immersive robotic vision of the surgical field had a positive reaction from our audience. Our initial results encourage further implementing this technology in surgical training of medical students and residents to prove its efficacy.

Emotion-Aware In-Car Feedback: A Comparative Study

We investigate personalised feedback mechanisms to help drivers regulate their emotions, aiming to improve road safety. We systematically evaluate driver-preferred feedback modalities and their impact on emotional states. Using unobtrusive vision-based emotion detection and self-labeling, we captured the emotional states and feedback preferences of 21 participants in a simulated driving environment. Results show that in-car feedback systems effectively influence drivers’ emotional states, with participants reporting positive experiences and varying preferences based on their emotions. We also developed a machine learning classification system using facial marker data to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach for classifying emotional states. Our contributions include design guidelines for tailored feedback systems, a systematic analysis of user reactions across three feedback channels with variations, an emotion classification system, and a dataset with labeled face landmark annotations for future research.

Exploring user reactions to luxury brand videos on YouTube: a comparative study of influencers and brand-official channels

This study offers empirical evidence about individual reactions to brand-related videos posted on YouTube in the luxury context. We use methods of text mining and natural language processing to analyze the characteristics of the posts by people commenting on videos provided by influencers vs. brands’ official YouTube channels. We mined emotions and sentiments and evaluated the complexity and richness of the language. Data on 282 videos and more than 160,000 comments suggest that users display an impulsive reaction to a brand’s official video and a thoughtful reaction to an influencer’s video posted. In fact, in the former case, comments are short, simple, and enthusiastic, while in the latter comments are longer, more complex, and more moderate in terms of positive emotions. This study participates to the debate on the efficacy of influencer marketing to engage customers, offers empirical evidence in the online communication arena of luxury brands, and methodologically suggests a new method to accurately capture users’ engagement in the discussion spurred by publishing a brand-related video.

Personal, Private, Emotional? How Political Parties Use Personalization Strategies on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns

In 2014, the EU introduced the lead candidate procedure to raise citizens’ awareness and interest in the European Parliament (EP) elections and, thereby, voter turnout. We study the use of personalization, centralized personalization (focusing on lead candidates), emotional personalization, and private personalization on Facebook by political parties across 12 countries during the 2014 and 2019 EP campaigns and the effects of personalization on user engagement. A standardized quantitative content analysis of 14,293 posts by 227 political parties shows that about half of the Facebook posts were personalized, but there is no general trend of rising personalization. While emotional personalization increased, parties hardly ever posted about their lead candidates and their private lives. Variations are not due to structural (e.g., party and media systems) or geographical/cultural factors. Positive effects are found for the use of emotional personalization attracting a higher volume of user reactions (likes, reactions, shares, and comments) in both elections.

Divisive Issues, Polarization, and Users’ Reactions on Facebook: Comparing Campaigning in Latin America

Economic, social, and health crises have shaken and polarized contemporary politics. An element fueling this polarization is the dissemination of divisive topics on social media platforms. While these polarizing social media tendencies are increasingly studied, research exploring digital political communication in South America remains scarce. This study aims to analyze the electoral campaigns in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru to define the features that trigger polarized emotional reactions on Facebook. The corpus comprises a sample of 2,930 posts published by candidates and political parties during the first round of the presidential elections held in these countries between 2021 and 2022. We hypothesize that users are more likely to react in a polarized way to content focused on divisive issues. In addition, we examine how these patterns differ across countries and the influence of the level of political polarization. Finally, the role played by party-level characteristics in the emotional reactions of users is also analyzed. By means of quantitative content analysis, these questions are addressed using multilevel negative binomial regressions to identify what predicts Love and Angry reactions. The bandwagon effect seems to work positively on users’ moods since the most popular political actors receive significantly more Love reactions, irrespective of the post’s subject. In more polarized countries, there is a tendency to react more negatively to certain divisive issues, generating greater visibility of these issues on social networks and thus promoting more polarization. These findings expand knowledge about the dynamics of digital political communication in the Global South.