Do users trade performance for eco-visibility? Digital pollution awareness and stated preferences for social media platform configurations

Digital platforms face growing pressure to demonstrate environmental responsibility, yet users’ preferences for eco-visible features remain underexplored relative to functional attributes. Using a full-factorial rating-based within-subject conjoint survey with a UK sample ( N = 345) recruited to match national census distributions of age, sex, and ethnicity, combined with hierarchical linear modelling, this study decomposes willingness to use social media platforms across four attributes: media quality, loading speed, eco-visibility, and advertising frequency. Results show that technical attributes — media quality (relative importance = 34.9%) and loading speed (34.5%) — jointly dominate eco-visibility (8.1%), revealing a persistent performance-over-sustainability hierarchy in elicited trade-off preferences. A full 4 4 cross-level moderation analysis incorporating all 16 attribute-by-moderator interactions with Benjamini–Hochberg FDR correction identifies advertising receptivity — rather than green self-identity or environmental awareness — as the strongest individual-difference moderator, showing a dual pattern: it simultaneously attenuates the reduced-ads utility and amplifies the loading-speed premium. Green self-identity attenuates the media-quality premium but does not amplify eco-visibility utility; none of the eco-visibility moderations — by green self-identity, social comparison orientation, or digital environmental attitude — is confirmed. Exploratory benefit segmentation identifies three preference profiles — Technical Optimizers, Eco-Aware Pragmatists, and Ad-Averse Minimalists — revealing a sign reversal in eco-visibility utility across profiles. Theoretical and practical implications for sustainable platform design, multiple-comparison practices in conjoint moderation research, and green digital marketing are discussed.