We know what you clicked online
Overview
We conducted an experiment called “We Know What You Clicked Online!!” to show how attention is manipulated using vulnerabilities as bait. With limited attention spans and small screens, clickbait has become nearly unavoidable. While sparking curiosity is fine, exploiting insecurities and beliefs is unethical.
We built a fictional app "CaturA" to simulate social media using fictional examples of Greed, Fear and Rage, .
This experiment, using fictional examples, reveals the types of clickbait people are most vulnerable to, highlighting how creators use sensational headlines and misleading content to stay relevant in the digital age.
.Watch Documentation Video
We presented CaturA as part of an exhibition We know what you clicked online to the RCA community. We represented each individual’s result visually at the end of the game and digitally on a live map of all the collected results, projected in the exhibition space. Participants could see their results in comparison to others who had taken part. It offered the audience a chance to step back and reflect on how they interact online, the visual result acting as a provocation, rather than a summation of their behaviour.
Presenting and testing the game live was also a chance to discuss with participants, either in person, or through reflection cards, about their experience of interacting with clickbait and how CaturA had caused them to reflect on this. In this way the experience, despite exploring the way we individually behave on social media, became a very real life social interaction too.
