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Yes, Echo-Chambers Mislead You Too: A Game-Based Educational Experience to Reveal the Impact of Social Media Personalization Algorithms

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Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online (HELMeTO 2022)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1779))

Abstract

We present a digital media literacy activity composed of (i) an educational talk and (ii) a game-based activity. The aim is to support teachers in developing learning activities to increase awareness of social media threats among students. Through this activity students directly experience phenomena like echo chambers and filter bubbles that can be provoked by harmful online interaction dynamics controlled by social media platforms’ recommender systems while remaining invisible to the affected users. Our preliminary findings show that a game-based direct experience, inspired by the wisdom of crowds phenomenon, can increase the perception of social media influence on participants with statistically significant results compared to standard lecture-based activity. We conclude that developing a tool enabling educators and scholars to easily perform the proposed activity can be helpful to improve digital media literacy effectiveness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Direct and indirect network effects are one of the main futures of platforms and can be defined as the fact that a platform service gains more value as more people use it. A direct network effect means that if more friends join the network, e.g. Facebook, each user will gain more utility from using it because he can keep in touch with all of his friends. Indirect network effects mean that e.g. if more vendors join Amazon each buyer will on average gain more utility e.g. because he has more chance to find the needed good.

  2. 2.

    Find the Table in Social media use over time in https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/, Retrieved on March 2, 2023.

  3. 3.

    Source: Pew Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/23/most-u-s-teens-who-use-cellphones-do-it-to-pass-time-connect-with-others-learn-new-things/. Retrieved on March 2, 2023.

  4. 4.

    Check here https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html. Source: New York Times. Retrieved on March 2, 2023.

  5. 5.

    Mozilla released a report called YouTube Regrets that highlights how YouTube recommender system cannot act coherently with user’s preferences regarding undesired content https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/youtube/findings/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the project COURAGE: A Social Media Companion Safeguarding and Educating Students funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, grant number 95563.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, 20126, Milano, Italy

    Francesco Lomonaco, Sathya Buršić, Gregor Donabauer & Dimitri Ognibene

  2. ISTC CNR, National Research Council of Italy, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Davide Taibi

  3. ITD CNR, National Research Council of Italy, 90146, Palermo, Italy

    Vito Trianni

  4. School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Essex University, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK

    Dimitri Ognibene

Authors
  1. Francesco Lomonaco
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  2. Davide Taibi
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  3. Vito Trianni
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  4. Sathya Buršić
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  5. Gregor Donabauer
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  6. Dimitri Ognibene
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Davide Taibi or Dimitri Ognibene .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Educational Technology, Palermo, Italy

    Giovanni Fulantelli

  2. Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Logroño, Spain

    Daniel Burgos

  3. University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Gabriella Casalino

  4. Unitelma Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

    Marta Cimitile

  5. University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Giosuè Lo Bosco

  6. National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Educational Technology, Palermo, Italy

    Davide Taibi

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Lomonaco, F., Taibi, D., Trianni, V., Buršić, S., Donabauer, G., Ognibene, D. (2023). Yes, Echo-Chambers Mislead You Too: A Game-Based Educational Experience to Reveal the Impact of Social Media Personalization Algorithms. In: Fulantelli, G., Burgos, D., Casalino, G., Cimitile, M., Lo Bosco, G., Taibi, D. (eds) Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online. HELMeTO 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1779. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29800-4_26

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