Shadows in the feed: a critical examination of dark patterns and user manipulation on social media

Abstract

Social media has become crucial in an individual’s life, it influences one’s life in many ways such as ‘how one communicates’, ‘consuming information’, and ‘how one interacts with the others. However, the emergence of dark patterns interface design tactics that secretly ensure assistance to service providers at the user’s expense. It surely has raised ethical and psychological issues. The study explores the occurrence and effect of dark patterns on social media users, and its critical ethical implications. Using a netnographic analysis of user generated content on popular online platforms (Reddit, YouTube and blogs) and coding through the lens of the Persuasive System Design (PSD) model, identifies a toxic three stage causal pathway. The stages begin with 1) Cognitive and Behavior Manipulation where deceptive designs induce decision fatigue and exploit cognitive biases. This leads to 2) Emotional Distress, characterized by acute feelings of worry, frustration and betrayal. Finally, frequent exposure causes 3) Trust and Autonomy Erosion, a long-term loss of user trust and sense of control. In contrast to macro level regulatory research, this paper presents a micro level framework for interpreting and countering these dark designs trends at their inception. We argue that ethical design requires a paradigm shift: interfaces should be made to render design more cognitively transparent, affective harm must be adopted as a primary success metric and “micro trust” healing mechanisms should be implemented to restore user agency. The results provide researchers, designers and business leaders with a clear model of harm and road map toward more ethical, trustworthy digital environments.