Learning Through Gameplay About The Dangers of Sharing Data

Have you ever encountered tricks on websites and apps that lead you to do things you didn't intend to do? These deceptive tactics, known as dark patterns, manipulate user behavior. How can students learn to recognize these tricks? In the board game Dark Pattern, players install apps, draw dark pattern cards, and make decisions about sharing personal data. To win, a player must minimize data sharing and use cards to penalize other players. This paper builds on a Worldcist-2023 study where we analyzed three groups of players: one with a 60-minute session, another with a 75-minute session, and a third with a 90-minute session. Does longer playtime make a difference? We used Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine whether knowledge of dark patterns and risk perception increased, whether the likelihood of negative incidents from data sharing rose, and whether our PLS-SEM models could predict players' behavioral intentions to take proactive privacy measures. The two PLS-SEM models explained 32% and 28% of the variance, respectively, suggesting that about 30% of the variance could be attributed to the variables in the model. Overall, the analyses indicated that playing the Dark Pattern game positively influenced players' intentions to take proactive privacy steps