How many of us check out ratings and reviews for restaurants, hotels, businesses, and apps? How many of us ignore anything under 4 stars? Now how many of us consider how reliable those reviews actually are?
In an effort to eliminate apps that they find disagreeable, students have found a way to leverage the power of negative reviews to try to remove them from the App Store. This phenomenon began in China last year as a result of Covid imposed remote learning where students rebelled against an app called ‘DingTalk’ which was being used for their school work. A similar movement was started in the US against an app called Life 360 – a tracking app that parents can use to trace the movements of their children. Google Classroom was also on the target list of students attempting to ban apps used in online learning. At present time of writing, it has a 2.5 star average review, and a high percentage of 1 star reviews.
Check out these articles that talk about it…
Google Classroom app flooded with 1-star reviews as students react to working from home – 9to5Mac
This is not limited to students. With the recent sudden uncontrollable surge of Gamestop shares, the trading app Robinhood announced that it would block purchases of Gamestop and other volatile stocks driven up by the WallStreetBets reddit users. Google responded by deleting nearly 100 000 negative reviews.
Google salvaged Robinhood’s one-star rating by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviews – The Verge.
In our society where businesses compete constantly for our patronage, negative reviews can be detrimental or even fatal. This caused me to re-evaluate how much credence I put into customer reviews and opinions. This article from the New York Times discusses why we can’t trust negative online reviews.
Why You Can’t Really Trust Negative Online Reviews – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
I think in the future, I may take a second look at the lower star businesses… they might deserve a second chance, and there might be some hidden treasures.
Rating and reviews are certainly something that more people are utilizing in making decisions. In fact, commentary in discussion groups based on a singular poor experience can lead a consumer not to purchase or create a cascade of “me too” replies. In the corporate world this can lead to loss of sales and position of being in a fishbowl trying to work collaboratively with an individual to resolve their problem while the world is watching. Leaving fake reviews is like sharing misinformation and something we are unfortunately seeing more of in our society. It makes me wonder what our future is going to look like from a values perspective. Are fake reviews not the same as a lie? How to we teach children, teens and young adults not to fall prey to groupthink and become part of the problem and not the solution?
For some reason, Taylor Swift’s song “We are never ever getting back together” has popped into my mind….
All kidding aside, I hope as we further develop mobile culture that we will be able to instill values in how it should be and is intended to be used.
NIcole
I think that this is definitely a topic that should be considered when teaching media literacy. It’s funny because as a consumer, I now wade through reviews with this thought in the back of my mind. Which reviews are giving the tell tale signs of fabrication. Which ones are written because of one small issue that a user may have had that may not even be related to the product they’ve bought. Which ones seem to be created by a sea of fake names, with very small amounts of writing, and all five star reviews. Lots to consider and navigate.
Hi Marlis,
Your post made me realize something that should be pretty obvious – gossip happens online too! My brother is a high school teacher and refuses to read comments about himself on the Rate My Teachers site. Although I do refer to the reviews before purchasing a product, I try to gauge the authenticity of the person’s comments before considering them.
In the case of using tech against itself, perhaps the star rating needs to be linked to a more responsible digital citizenship – which could mean tracking or publicly linking the ratings to the rater. This in turn leads to different issues – privacy for one, and whether an influencer could impact the ratings just from their name on the product page. As you mention, reading the product owner’s reply to a rating greatly improves its perceived authenticity.
Your example of how students mobilised against particular apps is a great anecdote for any student who thinks they are not able to “move the needle”! Perhaps this may be a great conversation to have with students who are independently navigating the internet.
Hi Evelyne
I also avoid Rate My Teachers. I think that they have changed things up now, but they used to rate people based on 3 very ambiguous criteria – helpfulness, easyness, and I can’t remember the third one. I don’t consider an ‘easy’ teacher necessarily a ‘good’ one, but if a student ranks you as a hard teacher (even if they like you), then your rating goes down. As you mention, this is a good discussion point for students about appropriate criteria and reading between the lines of ratings and bias.
I agree that losing the anonymity of reviews would make them lose their value because people are less brutally honest if they have to attach their name. Perhaps if there is a way to still have the anonymity, but be able to trace if necessary – like if there was something threatening or inappropriate.
While I agree that teaching students that they have a voice is valuable, they also need to learn that they shouldn’t retaliate every time they encounter something uncomfortable. Having students mobilize against racial injustice or poverty is a valuable tool, but having them throw a tantrum because they don’t like the homework is perhaps an abuse of that voice. That is definitely something to address in a digital citizenship class.
Hi Marlis,
I so appreciate this post! It is so difficult to navigate through reviews because I am always wondering if they’re fake. It is always a headache trying to navigate through reviews on Amazon. In the end, I try to read some good ones and some bad ones, and focus on reviews that mention specific things. The power of reviews is certainly frightening, as highlighted by the articles you have chosen here. It reminds me of Yelp and all the controversies surrounding that. What do you think about reviews in this course? Does seeing the number of stars and comments a post have influence your decision to read a post?
Hi Ying
In one way I am thankful for the ability to have reviews and ratings to draw upon when I am making a purchase because I want to get the best value for my money, and I want to make sure that I am buying a quality product. I am actually thankful for people who take the time to write a quality review. Recently I purchased a pair of boots online and several of the reviews said that they fit quite narrow so I made sure to buy one size up and they fit perfectly. If not for the reviews, I would have purchased ill-fitting boots. However, with the myriad of choices of products, you are so right – navigating through reviews gets overwhelming.
When it comes to travel, it is sometimes hard to tell which reviews are legitimate and which ones are just people who have a personal bone to pick, or who are ultra snobs. Usually the reviews you see are glowing or extremely negative – few are in the middle ground. I really like it when the hotel manager can respond to reviews and give their side of the story to negative reviews – it usually sheds a lot more light and makes things much more clear.
In terms of this course, I may tend to steer subconsciously more towards the higher star reviews, but usually it’s more about the title and topic. If I see something that interests me, I’ll read it regardless of the rating. I think it’s more of a personal gratification/reward and ego boost to see my posts get higher ratings, and disappointment when they get lower ones. Not having ever been in a course designed like this, it is an interesting concept.