Identifying Dark Patterns and Protecting Your Kids Against Them

Dark Patterns.

If you’ve never heard the term before, you may not know what to think about it. You might think it identifies the red flags of someone’s moral decay. You’d likewise be forgiven if you thought the phrase described Batman and Wednesday Addams’ favorite clothing choices. Dark patterns fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

Coined in 2010 by Dr. Harry Brignull, dark or deceptive patterns are “tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something.” The US Federal Trade Commission expands on those examples, highlighting tricks that can cause the user to unintentionally give up their privacy.

You may have encountered something like this before. Have you ever been using an app on your phone when it forces you to watch an advertisement for a mobile game? The ad looks like you can skip it by clicking an “X” in the corner, but the moment you try to do so, you’re taken straight to the game’s download page on the mobile app store instead. The ad was designed to trick you into clicking the screen in order to boost its interaction rate. And it’s a classic example of a dark pattern known as a “Bait and Switch.”

And while the above example might not result in anything more than a bit of annoyance, other instances can lead you into accidentally giving away far more. A 2022 report by the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection notes that not only are dark patterns becoming more common in the marketplace—but they’re also costing people money and privacy.

“Our report shows how more and more companies are using digital dark patterns to trick people into buying products and giving away their personal information,” Samuel Levine, the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “This report—and our cases—send a clear message that these traps will not be tolerated.”

Like a snake oil salesman, companies that employ dark patterns prey on the customer’s trust, hoping that consumers will skim the details without reading the fine print. Like magicians, they use smoke and mirrors to corral you into an action you otherwise would not have made. Like a predatory loan shark, obtaining their subscription is easy—but it’ll take a whole lot more effort to escape.

And they do it because, quite simply, it works. Sure, you may have caught that extra hidden charge before it went through. But 500 other people didn’t, and that’s enough profit to continue the practice.

Risks to Children

Children are especially susceptible to these underhanded tactics. In an FTC-hosted panel on how dark patterns target kids and teens, Dr. Jenny Radesky, a collegiate and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, identified five key ways children are at a disadvantage against dark patterns.

1. Immature Executive Functions – As children grow up, they learn various cognitive skills related to organization and emotional regulation, including self-control and decision-making. But these underdeveloped skills can leave a child susceptible to persuasive advertising in games and on apps or websites. “Although an adult might be able to resist clicking on something that has sparkles or a countdown clock or candy or piles of gold, a child may not be able to resist that,” Radesky said. “They can’t really critically evaluate how their behavior is being persuaded by a designer.”
2. Parasocial Relationships – When children bond with an online character, they’re more likely to want to purchase products if that character tells them to. Some apps, Radesky noted, contain mascot characters who will tell users to purchase in-app currency, for instance.
3. Reward Susceptibility – Radesky noted that children’s behavior is influenced by positive reinforcement. Because of this, children are incentivized to continue playing a game longer than they otherwise would have as they chase down in-game rewards—and avoid potential “punishments,” like losing a growing streak they had accrued for playing the game every day.
4. Concrete, Not Abstract, Thinking – Children aren’t as capable of considering the abstract scale of digital processes and algorithms, making them less cautious when it comes to providing their private information and personal likes and dislikes online. Combined with the first point, these algorithms, which cater to a user’s interests, can trap children in an endless scroll.
5. Ignorance of Virtual Currencies – Many parents have had to sit down and teach their children the value of a dollar. Children learn more about how finances work as they grow up. As a result, younger, inexperienced kids may not understand that the unlimited digital currencies they’re purchasing in-game cost real, limited dollars. And when each game’s virtual currency comes with its own unique name (some of which are only tangentially related to money, like “gems,” “gold” or “energy”), that value is even harder to grasp.

The FTC, to its credit, has begun cracking down on companies who have allegedly used dark patterns. In recent years, the organization reached an agreement requiring the popular video game Fortnite to pay $520 million in relief as a result of the FTC’s complaint that the game violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and deployed dark pattern tactics to “dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases.” And in 2023, it issued a complaint against Amazon, claiming the company “enroll[s] consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime.”

Dark Patterns to Look For

But rather than wait for restitution, parents should familiarize themselves with dark patterns in order to teach themselves and their children how to identify and avoid such deceptive practices.

The FTC identifies eight groupings of dark patterns in its 2022 report, and you can likewise find real-life examples of them on Brignull’s website. However, here are a handful of specific dark patterns within those groupings that you can teach your children to watch out for the next time they go online.

• Roach Motel – Also known as the “Hard to Cancel” dark pattern, this is when a company makes a subscription service difficult to escape once you’ve signed up. For instance, a service will allow you to subscribe online in mere seconds, but it only lets you unsubscribe by calling a customer service agent—one who always just so happens to be busy assisting other customers and tries to convince you to stay with the company when you do connect. Companies who employ this tactic hope to inconvenience users to the point where we figure the measly $10-per-month subscription isn’t worth the hassle of ending it.

• Hidden Costs – Wow! Only $50 for front-row seats? What a steal! But by the time you check out, those $50 seats now cost $150. What happened? Ah, the $50 was the price of the seats: It didn’t include the “convenience fee.” Or the “service fee.” Or the other three fees tacked on top. In this dark pattern, companies disguise the final cost of the product in the hopes that, once you’ve clicked through the many pages it takes to get to checkout, you’ll be so worn down that you’ll just fork over the money with the extra charges.

• Confirmshaming – Were Plugged In to employ “confirmshaming,” it might look something like this:
  • Are you sure you’d like to unsubscribe from Plugged In?
  • Option A: No, I made a mistake.
  • Option B: Yes, I hate media discernment.

In other words, confirmshaming is when a user is emotionally manipulated (often through guilt or shame) into taking an action they’d rather not do. This dark pattern is often seen when trying to unsubscribe from a service as a final attempt to coerce the user into keeping the subscription.

• Fake Scarcity – If you’re looking at purchasing that product, you’d better order it fast! There are only two left in stock, and five other customers are currently looking at the product, too. However, this isn’t always the case. The fake scarcity dark pattern hopes to manipulate customers into a quick purchase by leading them to falsely believe the product is both popular and close to being unavailable—when in reality, the same product will still be available the next day.

• Preselection – You’re in the process of buying an airplane ticket, and you’re just about to purchase when you notice the checked box stating that you’d also like to buy travel insurance, too. Had you not noticed that and manually unchecked the box, you’d have found a surprise charge alongside your ticket. It’s an example of the preselection dark pattern which, although most common in tricking customers into signing up for mailing lists, can also result in some unwanted charges.

Teaching your children to identify dark patterns is important; it’s also important to emphasize guidelines for online behavior. In an age of dark patterns and malware, teach your teens to carefully read anything related to account creation, subscriptions and purchases, links or downloads. For younger kids, have them come to you to obtain permission to download or purchase something. Likewise, make sure that, if you do decide to purchase something on a device your child has access to, your credit or debit card information isn’t accidentally saved for your child to (knowingly or unknowingly) exploit.

With the prevalence of online exchanges, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into some dark pattern tactics. They’re the equivalent of the stereotypical underhanded manipulations of a grimy salesman, hoping you’ll swing for those extra cupholders or get the “premium value” product bundle with a few sly words. But just as a parent might teach their child how to interact with such salesmen, helping your child navigate these dark patterns is key to helping him or her become a screen-savvy individual.