Social Media User Empowerment Scale (SMUE-U): A User-Facing Measure

The following measure is intended to measure User Empowerment on social media platforms, which may be defined as the ability to have agency or control over one's social media use, as well as the ease one can complete their original, desired, intended actions. This includes having control over what a user can see on social media, as well as the tasks they complete.

The Social Media User Empowerment Scale (SMUE-U) is a 9-item measure which uses a 7-point likert scale. A higher score indicates that a user is able to exercise a greater level of agency over their social media tasks, suggesting that they experience a higher level of User Empowerment and can complete their desired tasks with ease.

The Social Media User Empowerment Scale is a user-facing measure that provides users a total score.

The Social Media User Empowerment Scale (SMUE-U)

1. I am able to control what I see on social media.

2. I feel that I am able to customize my social media to my preferences.

3. If I had the option to filter what I see on social media, I would disable certain posts.

4. I can easily configure my social media to avoid features I do not want to use.

5. I don’t find myself looking at social media posts that I did not opt into seeing.

6. I see social media posts that I did not consent to seeing, including images, text posts, and videos.

7. I am able to use social media for what I originally intended to when I opened the app.

8. When I am on social media, I end up doing something I did not mean to.

9. I don’t get distracted by features on social media unrelated to what I meant to do online.

Link to PDF of SMUE.