Curriculum / Social Media: Dangers & Ethics / module 1

The Attention Economy

By OSH Founding Team✓ Verified by OSH Review Panel

The learner discovers that when the product is free, attention is the product, and audits how apps are engineered to keep them scrolling.

Parent guide (what to say and do)

Open a feed together (parent's account). Scroll for two minutes and count: how many posts did you choose to see, and how many were chosen for you? Discuss who does the choosing and why. Introduce the core idea: apps earn money per minute of your attention. Then run the design hunt: find five features built to keep you scrolling (infinite scroll, autoplay, streaks, badges, pull-to-refresh). This module is about understanding, not banning; a learner who sees the machine is harder to use.

Learning material

Feature hunt checklist (platform library)
Short glossary: algorithm, engagement, monetization, data profile

Practical exercises and activities

Audit: screen-time report review, guessing numbers first, then facing reality. Experiment: interact with three posts of one topic, then document how the feed changes over two days. Family policy: learner drafts their own usage policy and defends it to the family.

Materials required

A phone or computer with any social app, used under parent supervision.

Assessment checkpoints

Learner explains in their own words how a free app makes money, names five attention-holding design features from their own hunt, and produces a written personal usage policy.

Learn with AI

Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.

For the student

A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.

For the parent or teacher

A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.

How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude

ChatGPT: Open ChatGPT → press your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → paste the prompt into Instructions → name it after the module → save for repeated lessons. Or simply paste the prompt at the start of a new chat.

Gemini: Open Gemini → Gems panel → New Gem → paste the prompt into the instructions box → name it after the module → save. The Gem stays available for every study session.

Claude: Open Claude → create a Project (or a Skill in Claude Code) → paste the prompt into the project instructions → every conversation in that project becomes a tutoring session for this module.

Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.

This module is part of the open OSH curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Print it, adapt it, share it.