Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy
I imagine readers here will do fine with this, but it’s something you might want to try with your students. Ask them this: Can they spot the advertisement on this page? (click to enlarge).
Even better, show them a couple of these and ask if there is any advertising on the page.
Doesn’t it say “sponsored” right there? Cool exercise though, because at first i assumed it would be one of the rightmost columms and the “get the app” for WSJ tricked me for a minute.
My mom has problems w multiple columns on websites. Phone app versions don’t have so many columns so e.g. Facebook sponsored content falls right in the middle of the timeline amongst everything else. I wasn’t sure if that happens on browser as well (i notice ads on the right, usually). I just deleted the phone app, though
It does. But guess what percentage of U.S. youth can’t identify it? Seriously, take a guess, it’s actually a non trivial number.
I’m guessing some ppl thought there was no advertising at all because all the items look equal on the tiles? Would love a link to the research ur citing (u probably mention it somewhere in an earlier post). I’m gonna guess 30% didn’t know?
The problem is, unless you’re really looking to see whether something is ‘sponsored’, it’s easy to just follow a link without noticing.
My new rule these days is ‘don’t follow links to other stories on websites’. I stick to the strory I followed from my aggregator and don’t explore the cesspools.
Hapgood 
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