The Online Attention Game for Digital Identity Education: An Exploratory Study

Ill-considered postings by young social media users hungry for attention have recently garnered headlines. Imprudent online posts distort the posters’ digital identity, which refers to one’s online image as perceived by others. Online attention-seeking behaviour may result in digital identities that are separate from a person’s true nature, which can lead to social and mental harm. To mitigate these impacts, effective educational material is needed to help non-technical users understand the risks and consequences of thoughtless, attention-seeking online behaviour. This study takes the first step towards fulfilling this educational need by developing the Online Attention Game (OAG), which is played in a laboratory or classroom setting (OAG-CS) or remotely (OAG-R). It replicates the online competition involved in seeking other social media users’ attention. Through five OAG games (two OAG-CS games with students, two OAG-CS games with researchers, and one OAG-R game with researchers), we confirmed the tendencies and characteristics of young university students’ and adult researchers’ online posting behaviour. Through carrying out the OAG-R successfully, we ensured the OAG was useful for digital identity education even at the difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic.