Understanding Social Media & Apps

60 minutes • 8 experiences

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Understanding Social Media & Apps

How the apps you use really work

Follow the path from psychological manipulation to data commodification. Understand why you can't stop scrolling, what happens to your data, and how algorithms shape what you see. Then discover what alternatives could look like. Grounded in documented cases.

⏱️ 60 minutes

📍 8 stops

👥 Anyone who uses social media

Scroll down to begin your journey. Each experience builds on the last.

game

Design the Worst AI

What if good intentions lead to terrible outcomes?

Build the "most engaging" app by toggling features: notifications, infinite scroll, personalization. Watch as it becomes addictive and chaotic. Congratulations—you just designed Instagram.

⏱️ 3 min

game

Your Data for Sale

What's your data worth?

See your data profile: location, browsing, purchases, health. Watch it get auctioned to companies. You made $0.48. They made $677+. That's a 1,410x markup.

⏱️ 4 min

investigation

The Free Lunch

If it's free, what are you really paying with?

Choose a "free" app. Watch the Terms of Service scroll by impossibly fast. Click "I Agree." See your data points fly away to advertisers, brokers, partners. This is what you agreed to in 0.3 seconds.

⏱️ 2 min

game

The Filter Bubble

What reality is AI showing you?

Split screen: Two users search the same topic. One sees progressive sources. One sees conservative. Neither knows what the other sees. This is Google.

⏱️ 2 min

game

The Recommendation Rabbit Hole

Where do algorithms take you?

Start with "healthy recipes." Click what the AI recommends. In 10 clicks, you're watching conspiracy theories. This is YouTube's radicalization pipeline.

⏱️ 3 min

investigation

Stereotype Safari

How does AI reduce you to a marketing category?

Provide basic data (age, gender, zip code, searches, purchases). Watch AI instantly categorize you into stereotypes. See what assumptions it makes, what ads you're "worth," and how wrong—yet profitable—these categories are.

⏱️ 3 min

investigation

When Seeing Isn't Believing

How did deepfakes evolve from warning to weapon?

Journey through 4 real deepfake cases (2018-2024): Obama PSA warning, Tom Cruise TikTok perfection, Zelenskyy war propaganda, $25.6M Arup video call heist. Watch how the technology evolved from detectable fakes to perfect simulations. Understand the real risks: financial fraud, political manipulation, wartime propaganda, non-consensual deepfakes. Learn how to protect yourself when video can no longer be trusted.

⏱️ 5 min

creative

Design Counter-Algorithms

What if algorithms served humans?

Design your ideal algorithm with 6 value sliders: Confirmation↔Challenge, Viral↔Quality, Endless↔Finite, Echo Chamber↔Diversity, Outrage↔Calm, Machine↔Human. Then apply your algorithm to real products—Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter/X, Netflix, LinkedIn—and see how each platform would be reimagined. Switch between tabs to compare current vs. reimagined versions. Discover real alternatives: Mastodon, BeReal, RSS, Wikipedia, Substack. Actionable steps: chronological feeds, turn off recommendations, follow fewer but deeper.

⏱️ 4 min

Experience #9

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