“I think they somehow make money if you stay with it longer” – On the Algorithm Literacy of Swiss Children and its Implications for Civic Education

Algorithms are a central structural element of digitized environments. Especially so-called recommendation engines are a type of algorithm that is particularly relevant for everyday media use (Schrage, 2020): They are used in platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, which are routinely called up by many children in German-speaking Switzerland (Waller et al., 2019). Recommendation systems are not only used for the altruistic reason of guiding through the unmanageable number of possible access options. Algorithmic recommendation systems are closely intertwined with commercial interests (Beer, 2017), reflect dominant social categories (Noble, 2018) and can shape how users construct reality (Just & Latzer, 2017). Therefore, from both a media education and a civic education perspective, the ability to critically reflect on algorithms, act self-determinedly in relation to them, and constructively shape the societies in which they are embedded has become increasingly important: algorithm literacy. Several empirical studies have addressed aspects of algorithm literacy in adolescents and adults (Bell et al., 2022; Brodsky et al., 2020; Swart, 2021). However, there are few empirical studies that contribute to our knowledge of algorithmic literacy in children. Against this background, I conducted 26 group discussions with 120 children between the ages of 11 and 13 in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, to answer the following research questions How and to what extent are children aware of the algorithms used in video recommendation contests? If they are aware: In what ways do children criticize the way recommendation engines work? Conceptualizing recommendation engines as “experience technologies” (Cotter & Reisdorf, 2020), the discussions focused on a specific phenomenon where algorithmic systems appear in users' daily lives: video recommendations on the platform YouTube, which continuously enjoys great popularity among the majority of children in German-speaking Switzerland (Waller et al., 2019). This included authentic screenshots of recommendations as well as recommendation bars. All discussions have been video-taped and analyzed with the combination of an inductive coding procedure and conversational analysis of selected sequences. The presentation outlines the key findings of the study. One key finding that can be highlighted is that children in several groups are aware of the entanglement of their own time and attention with the commercial functionality of platforms. Both regulation of platforms and self-responsibility are discussed as a viable way forward – a connecting point for civic education in a "black box society" (Pasquale, 2015), which is also addressed in the presentation.