Efficacy of Educational Misinformation Games

Abstract: Misinformation has become a significant issue in today's society, with the proliferation of false information through various mediums such as social media and traditional news sources. The rapid spread of misinformation has made it increasingly difficult for people to separate truth from fiction, and this has the potential to cause significant harm to individuals and society as a whole. In addition, there currently exists an information gap with regard to internet education, with many schools across America not having the teaching personnel nor resources to adequately educate their students about the dangers of the internet, specifically with regard to misinformation in the political sphere. To address the dangers of misinformation, some game developers have created video games that aim to educate players on the issue and help them develop critical thinking skills. These games can be used to raise awareness about the importance of verifying information before sharing it. By doing so, they can help reduce the spread of misinformation and promote a more informed and discerning public. They can also provide players with a safe and controlled environment to practice these skills and build confidence in their ability to evaluate information. However, these existing games often suffer from various shortcomings such as failing to adequately address how misinformation specifically exploits the biases within people to be effective and rarely covering how evolving modern technologies like sophisticated chatbots and deep fakes have made individuals even more vulnerable to misinformation. The purpose of this study is to create an educational misinformation game to address this information gap and investigate its efficacy as an educational tool while also iterating on the designs for previous games in the space.