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Social media platforms—used by 88% of Australians—increase users’ exposure to graphic imagery known to negatively influence well-being. In an attempt to mitigate this negative impact, the dominant social-media platforms—including Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Buzzfeed, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok—now use warning screens that are designed to reduce “surprising or unwanted experiences,” and to assist users—particularly vulnerable users, such as people with psychopathological symptoms—make informed decisions about what content to view and what content to avoid. Yet, there is no empirical basis for this approach. In fact, one intriguing possibility, well-grounded in psychological theory, is that warnings actually encourage people to engage with screened content. Moreover, existing research on warnings suggests that they create anticipatory anxiety. In this talk, I will present emerging evidence that the warning screens used by social media platforms may not function as intended—as a protective mechanism for vulnerable people—and that the warnings themselves may have a negative impact.

Melanie Takarangi is an Associate Professor in the College of Education, Psychology & Social Work at Flinders University. Melanie is a cognitive and experimental psychologist by training, and her research focuses on memory for negative/traumatic experiences and its role in legal and clinical issues such as the reliability of testimony and psychological well-being. Melanie’s research has attracted funding from competitive grant schemes in Australia (ARC, Defence Innovation Partnership, Department of Veterans’ Affairs), New Zealand (Marsden Fund), and the United Kingdom (Nuffield Foundation, British Academy, ESRC). She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Psychonomic Society and has served as a member of the governing board of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition since 2014. Melanie has supervised over 50 undergraduate and postgraduate research theses, and in 2019 received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in HDR Supervision.