10 papers
The Body as Status: Muscularity, Engagement, and Body Image Risk on #GymTok
Magdalayna Curry, Minh Duc Chu, Changhao Yan +3
Body image concerns among boys and young men are increasingly oriented toward muscularity, with social media serving as a central context for communicating and evaluating these ide…
When Chatbots Accommodate: What AI Companions Optimize for in Vulnerable Conversations
Minh Duc Chu, Yifan Wu, Zhiyi Chen +2
Millions turn to AI companion chatbots during loneliness, grief, and personal crises. How these companion platforms respond in such moments can shape the trajectory of a user's vul…
Tied In on TikTok: Tie Strength and Emotional Dynamics in Algorithmic Communities
Charles Bickham, Minh Duc Chu, Arianna Yuan +5
Whether genuine communities can form on algorithmically-driven short-form video platforms like TikTok remains an open question, given that user interactions are often brief, disper…
BigTokDetect: A Clinically-Informed Vision-Language Modeling Framework for Detecting Pro-Bigorexia Videos on TikTok
Minh Duc Chu, Kshitij Pawar, Zihao He +7
Social media platforms face escalating challenges in detecting harmful content that promotes muscle dysmorphic behaviors and cognitions (bigorexia). This content can evade moderati…
Illusions of Intimacy: How Emotional Dynamics Shape Human-AI Relationships
Minh Duc Chu, Patrick Gerard, Kshitij Pawar +2
AI companion chatbots, such as those offered by Replika and CharacterAI, increasingly function as always-available companions that provide empathy, validation, and support. While t…
Leveraging Machine Learning to Identify Gendered Stereotypes and Body Image Concerns on Diet and Fitness Online Forums
Minh Duc Chu, Cinthia Sánchez, Zihao He +3
The pervasive expectations about ideal body types in Western society can lead to body image concerns, dissatisfaction, and in extreme cases, eating disorders and other psychopathol…