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Samuel
Samuel Hardman Taylor studies interpersonal and psychological processes in social media, mobile phones, and other communication technologies. His research focuses on the implications of social media for personal relationships and psychological well-being. He is interested in human-computer interaction, emphasizing designing new technologies to support social connections, intimacy, and mental health. Sam also works with interdisciplinary teams to build new tools for social media analytics to advance social science research.
Dr. Taylor is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Chicago. Sam earned his PhD in Communication at Cornell University, working in the Cornell Social Media Lab. He is also affiliated with the UIC Psychology Department. Sam advises undergraduate and graduate students in the Chicago Social Media Lab and welcomes graduate students to apply to UIC.
You can find his UIC contact information here.
Research Highlights
Research Highlights
The Lonely Algorithm Problem
The Lonely Algorithm Problem
Taylor & Chen (2024): Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
Social media companies, such as TikTok, claim that their algorithms—the behind-the-scenes technology that recommends what posts/videos users see—are designed to facilitate social connection. But do these claims align with the experiences of social media users? Individuals in our study felt more connected to others when algorithmic personalization on TikTok reflected their sense of self, goals, interests, hobbies, etc. Feeling connected through algorithms appeared to be the byproduct of how users interact with and perceive the algorithm not just an algorithm’s code.
Algorithm Responsiveness
Algorithm Responsiveness
Taylor & Choi (2022): Social Media + Society
We introduced the algorithm responsiveness process, and developed a scale to measure people’s perceptions how responsive social media algorithms are to identity, goals, and interests. Our data suggested that TikTok is rated as more responsive to user’s identity and goals than Facebook or Instagram. Conversely, Facebook’s algorithm is more insensitivity to people’s identities than TikTok. The scale for the study is available here.
Always Online, Always Available
Always Online, Always Available
Taylor & Bazarova (2021): Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
Being tethered to one another can give people a sense of security, while simultaneously causing more stress. In this article, we find that keeping a romantic partner constantly within a (digital) arm’s reach promotes better well-being for oneself. Being always available to a romantic partner via offline and online communication channels did not harm well-being. Rather, keeping a romantic partner always available also predicted better well-being for the romantic partner.
Parenting TikTok
Parenting TikTok
Taylor & Brisini (2024): Computers in Human Behavior
Teens live in an algorithmically curated digital world, especially on the platform TikTok with the For You Feed. In this project, we position parental algorithm awareness as a critical digital parenting skill and seek to understanding how it influences parental mediation decisions. A survey of U.S. parents founds that algorithm awareness predicted more negative attitudes about algorithmic curation on TikTok because algorithm awareness predicted parents thinking about the risks of TikTok use more but not the opportunities. Negative attitudes about TikTok’s algorithm, in turn, predicted a greater likelihood of banning their teenager from using TikTok.
Open Science in Communication
Open Science in Communication
Markowitz, Song, & Taylor (2021): Journal of Communication.
This project reviews 10,000+ communication research papers to see how the field of communication is approaching the ongoing open science revolution. We found that 5.1% of papers published between 2010 and 2020 mentioned open science, and that mentions of open science was unrelated to number of citations but inversely related to the h-index of the publishing journal.
Additional Resources
Additional Resources
You can find access to resources Dr. Taylor and his collaborators has created below. If you have questions about how to use them, email Sam.
Perceived Algorithm Responsiveness and Insensitivity Scale (PARIS)
This 15-item scale measures two variables: perceived algorithm responsiveness (PAR) and perceived algorithm insensitivity (PAI). The scale is validated for Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. More information is available in our Social Media + Society publication.
The Social Media Simulation
This social media experiment platform, called Truman, is a fake social networking site where participants are randomly assigned to different conditions upon signing up for the platform. Participants interact with pre-programmed bots that the researcher controls. All resources to replicate our experiments or run your own experiment with Truman are available on GitHub. The use of Truman requires technical skills, especially JavaScript. More information is available in our CHI and CSCW papers.
Presentations and Posters
I've added a folder that provides access to some of the PowerPoint presentations for my previous conference presentations, colloquiums, and job talks. There are also a few academic poster presentations available in the folder.
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