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Soc. Comput."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,31]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Social media plays a central role in shaping public opinion and behavior, yet performing experiments on these platforms and, in particular, on feed algorithms is becoming increasingly challenging. This guide offers practical recommendations for researchers developing and deploying field experiments focused on real-time reranking of social media feeds. The article is organized around two contributions. First, we provide an overview of an experimental method using web browser extensions that intercepts and reranks content in real time, enabling naturalistic reranking field experiments. We then describe feed interventions and measurements that this paradigm enables on participants\u2019 actual feeds, without requiring the involvement of social media platforms. Second, we offer concrete technical recommendations for intercepting and reranking social media feeds with minimal user-facing delay, and provide an open-source implementation. This document aims to summarize lessons learned in running field experiments on social media, provide concrete implementation details, and foster the ecosystem of independent social media research. Finally, we release the source code that serves as a blueprint for implementing future feed-ranking experiments: https:\/\/github.com\/StanfordHCI\/FeedMonitor.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3800557","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]],"date-time":"2026-03-02T09:31:50Z","timestamp":1772443910000},"page":"1-17","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Reranking Social Media Feeds: A Practical Guide for Field Experiments"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9314-1440","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tiziano","family":"Piccardi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Johns Hopkins University","place":["Baltimore, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9908-7454","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Martin","family":"Saveski","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Washington","place":["Seattle, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8407-9224","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chenyan","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Northeastern University - Boston Campus","place":["Boston, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5367-2677","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jeffrey T.","family":"Hancock","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Stanford University","place":["Stanford, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4150-8268","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jeanne","family":"Tsai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Stanford University","place":["Stanford, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8020-9434","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Michael","family":"Bernstein","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Stanford University","place":["Stanford, United States"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aec7388"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2835776.2835848"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aaa1160"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s00146-014-0549-4"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.psych.54.101601.145030"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","volume-title":"Social Media and News Fact Sheet","author":"Center Pew Research","year":"2023","unstructured":"Pew Research Center. 2023. 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