Measuring the Mental Health of Content Reviewers, a Systematic Review

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gonzalez, Alexandra, Matias, J. Nathan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Gonzalez, Alexandra
Matias, J. Nathan
author_facet Gonzalez, Alexandra
Matias, J. Nathan
contents Artificial intelligence and social computing rely on hundreds of thousands of content reviewers to classify high volumes of harmful and forbidden content. Many workers report long-term, potentially irreversible psychological harm. This work is similar to activities that cause psychological harm to other kinds of helping professionals even after small doses of exposure. Yet researchers struggle to measure the mental health of content reviewers well enough to inform diagnoses, evaluate workplace improvements, hold employers accountable, or advance scientific understanding. This systematic review summarizes psychological measures from other professions and relates them to the experiences of content reviewers. After identifying 1,673 potential papers, we reviewed 143 that validate measures in related occupations. We summarize the uses of psychological measurement for content reviewing, differences between clinical and research measures, and 12 measures that are adaptable to content reviewing. We find serious gaps in measurement validity in regions where content review labor is common. Overall, we argue for reliable measures of content reviewer mental health that match the nature of the work and are culturally-relevant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_00244
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Measuring the Mental Health of Content Reviewers, a Systematic Review
Gonzalez, Alexandra
Matias, J. Nathan
Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial intelligence and social computing rely on hundreds of thousands of content reviewers to classify high volumes of harmful and forbidden content. Many workers report long-term, potentially irreversible psychological harm. This work is similar to activities that cause psychological harm to other kinds of helping professionals even after small doses of exposure. Yet researchers struggle to measure the mental health of content reviewers well enough to inform diagnoses, evaluate workplace improvements, hold employers accountable, or advance scientific understanding. This systematic review summarizes psychological measures from other professions and relates them to the experiences of content reviewers. After identifying 1,673 potential papers, we reviewed 143 that validate measures in related occupations. We summarize the uses of psychological measurement for content reviewing, differences between clinical and research measures, and 12 measures that are adaptable to content reviewing. We find serious gaps in measurement validity in regions where content review labor is common. Overall, we argue for reliable measures of content reviewer mental health that match the nature of the work and are culturally-relevant.
title Measuring the Mental Health of Content Reviewers, a Systematic Review
topic Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00244