“KAIST to automatically block mukbang YouTube channels and ASMR, aiming to promote healthy diet”

– Research team led by Professor Lee Sung-joo from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
– Development of a system to prevent negative influences of food content,

Professor Lee Sung-joo (from left), Choi Ryu-hae Ph.D. candidate, Park Soo-bin master’s candidate, Han Soo-jin Ph.D. candidate. [Provided by KAIST],
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, ‘[Herald Economy=Reporter Koo Bon-hyuk] Recently, various food-related content is gaining popularity on social media and various computer platforms. However, while eating is natural for some, those suffering from eating disorders struggle daily against the allure of unhealthy eating habits.’,
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, ‘A research team in South Korea has developed a system called FoodCensor on mobile and personal computers to block harmful digital food content such as mukbang ASMR for people with eating disorders.’,
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, ‘The research team led by Professor Lee Sung-joo from KAIST’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering announced on the 20th that they received the Best Paper Award for their real-time intervention system to prevent the negative effects caused by the indiscriminate consumption of digital food content by eating disorder patients at the Computer-Human Interaction conference (CHI) hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).’,
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, ‘Drawing inspiration from the two-system theory in psychology, this system enables social media users to consciously evaluate digital food content before making viewing decisions. Visual and auditory stimuli from digital food content can trigger users’ automatic reactions (such as reflexive content viewing), but this system blocks such automatic responses by covering and muting food content in real-time, and instead prompts users with questions for conscious content selection and consumption, activating System 2 for more conscious and healthier content consumption.’,
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Example of real-time food content censorship and intervention on the YouTube app on an Android smartphone. [Provided by KAIST],
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, ‘The research team conducted a 3-week user study involving 22 eating disorder patients to evaluate the system. They observed a significant decrease in exposure to and consumption of food content on YouTube in the experimental group, and that this decrease influenced YouTube’s content recommendation algorithm. Participants from the experimental group evaluated that the system played an important role in suppressing automatic reactions to viewing food-related content. User evaluations indicate that the proposed system alleviates obsessions about food in daily life for eating disorder patients and provides a better quality of life.’,
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, ‘Professor Lee Sung-joo explained, “Along with the design direction of adaptive intervention supporting healthy consumption of digital content, this will be a user-centered content management method that promotes intentional behavioral changes beyond simply censoring content.” He also stated, “It can be applied not only to food content but also to violent or explicit content, or various topics, with anticipated ripple effects.”‘,
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