Looks can be deceiving- I certainly did not dance happily when I completed the game, User Inyerface. I was, more precisely, relieved.
According to the timer, I completed the game in 11 minutes 42 seconds, but the truth is, this attempt is in fact the sixth. The first five attempts were so unsuccessful that I thought of giving up. I also grew suspicious that there was actually no end to this game at all; it was just a website that was trying to trick us into believing otherwise. Then I thought, since I have tried five times, let’s give it a final shot. Who knows, I could make it through the game in the shortest time possible? I was wrong-not the shortest time, obviously.
As we were reading about the dark patterns, I was extra cautious in trying to avoid falling into it, more careful than I normally would be. A few aspects that I found tricky were:
- To the question, “This site uses cookies, is that a problem for you?” The only option was to click “Yes”. Although “Not really, no” was an option, there was no clickable button to that option.
2. The timer pops up every 1 minute; serving as a reminder to catch our attention in maximizing our time on the game (Harris, 2017). Again, it took me a while to figure out how to close the window. Unable to close the pop-up box, I panicked and tried to instead lock the timer. Unfortunately, whether the timer was locked or unlocked, the clock ticks away. Realizing this, I was driven to try completing the game as soon as possible.
3. I also figured out that I had to actually “read” the terms and conditions. Accustomed to how I would usually scroll through the fine prints, I tried doing the same here. However, the scroll feature was painfully slow on this page, and I had to scroll to the bottom before being able to click “Accept”. Although it was far from pleasant, I reflected on the importance of actually reading service agreements before accepting them.
4. To prove that “Yes, I am human” was another uphill battle. I was stuck at this step for a while because while I feel that everything has been completed correctly, I was forced to do the same step, again and again, and it took me a long while before I was taken to the final page – totally unexpected! I wondered if this is the case with dark patterns- we are trapped in it without even realizing that we fell into it.
Upon completing this task, I pondered on the potential of attention economy in the classroom. The first thing that jumped right into my mind is using games in the classroom. Seeing how children are hooked on a variety of games ranging from Pogo Scrabble to Roblox and Minecraft, I wonder how we could use the attention economy to (manipulate) lead students into being more effectively engaged in learning. Instead of having students tuning out altogether in the classroom or being led astray by technology in the classroom (taking pictures of the wall or floor to keep a Snapchat streak), how do we strategize technology utilization in the classroom to make things work in our favour?
Reference
Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en