Playing with Misinformation: A Game-Based Approach to Children's Critical Digital Literacy

This paper presents the design and early development of SafeChilDe, a role-based classroom game for children aged 10 to 12 that teaches critical digital literacy about misinformation. The game assigns players four roles, journalist, influencer, fake maker, and detective, grounded in a critical media literacy framework. Its central thesis is that production-oriented, participatory gameplay can make abstract concepts of critical media literacy tangible for young learners, treating critical digital literacy as a practice-based competence developed through doing rather than only through evaluation. The motivating context is that nine in ten Danish children aged 5 to 12 have encountered misleading content online, yet few feel confident verifying it.

Development proceeded through four iterative prototype stages, moving from paper prototypes to a Unity3D digital version. Playtesting with children at public events and in classrooms yielded several key findings. Children intuitively recognized exaggerated language but struggled to articulate why content was misleading, and the fake maker role proved the most popular. Competitive, time-based mechanics encouraged speed over reflection, which prompted the designers to add locked narration and feedback that slowed progression. A headline-image-quote post structure proved engaging and accessible, and a shift from free-text to predefined elements supported clearer participation.

The authors are careful to frame the work as a design case. Testing was exploratory and low-risk, involving a small number of children recruited through the researchers' networks, and no learning outcomes were measured. Educational value is presented as dependent on classroom integration, teacher-facilitated debriefing, and reflection, and the ethical implications of having children construct misleading content receive explicit attention. Future work will refine the prototype and assess long-term effects on children's critical engagement with digital information.