Interactive visualizations for adolescents to understand and challenge algorithmic profiling in online platforms

2026-01-12

AI Summary

This study addresses adolescents’ limited visibility into and control over how algorithms shape their digital identities on social media. It proposes “Algorithmic Mirror,” a user-centered interactive visualization tool that, for the first time, integrates real cross-platform digital footprints from YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix to transform algorithmic profiles into explorable, personalized visual representations. Through engagement with this tool, 27 participants aged 12 to 16 gained insight into the breadth and persistence of data collection, recognized patterns in their cross-platform profiling, and critically reflected on algorithmically assigned interest categories. These experiences fostered a sense of digital agency grounded in identity awareness, empowering adolescents to interrogate and reshape how they are represented by algorithmic systems.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Search and Optimization: Algorithm Configuration
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Algorithmic accountability and transparency on the web
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data quality in the era of algorithmically-generated content
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

Social media platforms regularly track, aggregate, and monetize adolescents'data, yet provide them with little visibility or agency over how algorithms construct their digital identities and make inferences about them. We introduce Algorithmic Mirror, an interactive visualization tool that transforms opaque profiling practices into explorable landscapes of personal data. It uniquely leverages adolescents'real digital footprints across YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix, to provide situated, personalized insights into datafication over time. In our study with 27 participants (ages 12--16), we show how engaging with their own data enabled adolescents to uncover the scale and persistence of data collection, recognize cross-platform profiling, and critically reflect algorithmic categorizations of their interests. These findings highlight how identity is a powerful motivator for adolescents'desire for greater digital agency, underscoring the need for platforms and policymakers to move toward structural reforms that guarantee children better transparency and the agency to influence their online experiences.

Problem

• algorithmic profiling
• digital agency
• adolescents
• data transparency
• online platforms

Innovation

• interactive visualization
• algorithmic profiling
• digital footprints
• adolescent agency
• cross-platform data