Mind the Dark: A Gamified Exploration of Deceptive Design Awareness for Children in the Digital Age

TL;DR

This paper presents a gamified educational tool that significantly improves children's awareness of deceptive digital design patterns, fostering early digital literacy and empowering them to navigate online platforms safely.

Contribution

It introduces a novel gamified application designed to teach children about dark patterns, demonstrating its effectiveness in increasing awareness and understanding of deceptive design.

Findings

Dark pattern education increases children's awareness

Children's ability to identify dark patterns improves after using the app

Early education on deceptive design influences children's online navigation

Abstract

This paper addresses the critical issue of deceptive design elements prevalent in technology, and their potential impact on children. Recent research highlights the impact of dark patterns on adults and adolescents, while studies involving children are scarce. In an era where children wield greater independence with digital devices, their vulnerability to dark patterns amplifies without early education. Our findings show a significant positive impact of dark pattern education on children's awareness, revealing that heightened awareness considerably alters children's navigation of social media, video games, and streaming platforms. To this end, we developed a gamified application aimed at instructing children on identifying and responding to various dark patterns. Our evaluation results emphasize the critical role of early education in empowering children to recognize and counter deceptive design, thereby cultivating a digitally literate generation capable of making informed choices in the complex landscape of digital technology.