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Health-Centered Digital Media Design for Children
Health-Centered Digital Media Design for Children
Problem: Digital design elements (e.g., auto Play, infinite scroll, and unending video games) can compel continued engagement, especially for children who are developing their self-regulation skills.
Yet, manipulative design patterns are highly prevalent in children’s digital media.
These patterns are alarming health experts and researchers globally, such as the US Surgeon General who just called for a restriction on manipulative design facing youth.
Prior research suggests that nudges (e.g., break suggestions, removal of autoplay) are one way to reduce the impact of manipulative design.
However, there is no existing research on how children and parents want design to change to be more health centered and what types of nudges they think would be helpful.
I aimed to address this with the following research...
Research Questions:
What are children’s and parents’ perceptions of manipulative design patterns in digital media?
Do children and parents want digital media to change to support children’s health? If so, how?
From children’s and parents’ perspectives, how can interventions effectively incorporate age-appropriate nudges to promote healthy screen time amongst children?
Methods:
3 Design workshops with 16 children, involving:
Small Group Discussion about Manipulative Design
Rapid Prototyping to redesign technology to be more health-centered
Line Judging activity (on potential nudges to prompt health behaviors
Show and Tell with Parents
3 focus groups with their 17 parents, with discussions on:
manipulative design and its impacts, and
their envisioned design changes, including nudges.
The sample included a diverse cohort of families, including children with and without disabilities and across socioeconomic statuses.
Findings:
Children and parents believe that manipulative design has negative impacts on children’s physical and emotional health...
Challenges children’s adherence to healthy limits, by extending screen time and inhibiting transitions.
Increases exposure to age-inappropriate content, with misleading content descriptions and poor recommendations.
Children and parents want digital media design to change to support children’s health by:
Reducing the negative effects
To help limit screen time and facilitate transitions, children designed a variety of nudges. Notably, this was without prompting or explaining nudge theory.
To reduce children’s exposure to age-inappropriate content, children and parents suggested revising controls.
Increasing the positive effects
To help prompt positive health behaviors, children and parents suggested various nudges, such as physical activity in games, incentives for positive Health Behaviors, and suggested alternative activities in the form of screen breaks.
One child participant (age 11) described disabling autoplay (box 1), adding age restrictions and age verification mechanisms (box 2), censoring inappropriate contnet (box 3), and adding a suggested alternative activity after a certain amount of time (box 4).
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