What data will be used?

Data donation: When you donate your social media data, we only collect metadata ( i.e. message length (number of words or length in seconds for voice messages), time of writing a message or a post, pseudonyms of the conversation participants) and no content (i.e. no message text, media or name of the conversation participants). Your online interaction data will be anonymized locally on your device. We therefore never see your messages, posts or comments. Before submitting your anonymized data, you can review it. This way, you can verify that it is sufficiently anonymized.

Questionnaires: You first fill out questionnaires about your demographic information, well-being, life events and Instagram use. You can then complete the data donation, receive feedback and sign up for your compensation. The collection of questionnaire data is done completely anonymous on the platform LimeSurvey.

What happens to my data?

Since we are not collecting any names or other person-specific information, we will not be able to associate you with your data once the study has been completed — the donated data is anonymous. This means that your data cannot be deleted on request.

The data and results of these surveys will be published in scientific journals. The published data will be anonymous, meaning that it cannot be associated with individuals given the current state of research. This fully anonymized data will be uploaded to a research data repository (e.g., Zenodo) and made accessible upon request to qualified researchers (e.g., employees of a research institution, verified through a university email address and the signature of the principal investigator). Access will only be granted after the application has been reviewed and approved by a member of our research team.