"Even though you feel like it's good, it isn't": Surfacing the Ethical Priorities of Powerful Male Youth Targeted for Racial Oppression through Evaluating and Co-Designing XR Utopian and Dystopian Use Cases

Paper Title

'Even though you feel like it's good, it isn't': Surfacing the Ethical Priorities of Powerful Male Youth Targeted for Racial Oppression through Evaluating and Co-Designing XR Utopian and Dystopian Use Cases

Publication Info

• Topic area: Ethical considerations and participatory design in XR technologies for marginalized youth.
• Keywords: Extended reality, ethics, participatory design, speculative design, racial oppression, Black youth, STEM education, utopian design, dystopian design, youth agency.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: XR technologies are increasingly accessible but lack adequate consideration of ethical implications, particularly for marginalized youth. Prior research has focused on predominantly White populations, leaving gaps in understanding the perspectives of Black and other racially oppressed youth.
• Significance: Addressing ethical concerns in XR design is critical to ensure inclusivity, equity, and responsiveness to historically marginalized communities. This is particularly important for children, who are vulnerable to the adverse effects of emerging technologies.
• Motivation and related work: Previous studies have explored XR's potential benefits and risks but have largely excluded Black youth perspectives. This paper builds on participatory design (PD) and speculative design (SD) traditions to directly engage Black male youth in co-designing XR use cases, aiming to bridge this gap.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A two-week summer program called Tech on the Block (ToB) engaged 17 male middle school youth (primarily Black) in evaluating and co-designing XR utopian and dystopian use cases to surface their ethical priorities.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical insights into ethical priorities of Black male youth in XR design.
  2. Methodological guidelines for engaging marginalized youth in participatory and speculative design activities.
  3. Recommendations for integrating youth perspectives into ethical XR innovation.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Line Judging: Participants evaluated predefined XR use cases (utopian and dystopian) using a physical Likert scale and group discussions.
  • Speculative Design: Participants co-designed their own utopian and dystopian XR use cases in small groups, focusing on contexts like health, education, family, and sports.
  • Data collection included audio recordings, worksheets, design artifacts, field notes, and photographs.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Participants emphasized personal values like self-discipline, skepticism of virtual content, and self-care.
  • Broader societal concerns included avoiding entrapment, promoting equity, and leveraging XR for community empowerment.
  • Designs highlighted themes of agency, resistance, and community resilience.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Nuanced insights into ethical priorities specific to Black male youth, contrasting with prior studies focused on White populations or adult stakeholders.
  • Demonstrated how participatory and speculative design can surface deeper societal concerns and empower marginalized youth.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Participants evaluated six predefined XR use cases and created their own designs.
  • Discussions revealed ethical considerations like authenticity, overuse, accessibility, and societal impact.
  • Sample size: 17 male middle school youth (16 Black, 1 South Asian).
• Limitations and future work:
  • Small sample size limits generalizability.
  • Lack of explicit references to race and racism in participants' discussions, possibly due to early program timing and absence of Afrofuturist framing.
  • Future research should explore mixed-gender settings, broader contexts for XR use, and long-term community-embedded PD engagements.

Summary

This study engaged 17 male middle school youth targeted for racial oppression in evaluating and co-designing XR use cases to understand their ethical priorities. Participants emphasized personal values like self-discipline and skepticism, as well as societal concerns about equity and agency. Their designs revealed nuanced critiques of XR's potential risks and opportunities, advocating for community resilience and empowerment. The findings offer empirical and methodological insights for designing inclusive, ethical XR technologies and highlight the importance of centering marginalized youth voices in technology design.