Do you accept, really?: Adolescents and their engagement with Terms of Service : An Experimental Study on Interface Design and Comprehension of Terms of Service Among High Proficiency English Speaking Adolescents.

Sammanfattning

Terms of Service agreements are everywhere yet a widely ignored feature of digital life, raising concerns in particular for adolescent users who are both legally vulnerable and among the most active consumers of social media services. This study examined whether the implementation of reduced redundancy and visual signalling in the presentation of the Terms of Service would improve comprehension and recall among high proficiency English speaking adolescents. Using a between subject experimental design, 50 International Baccalaureate students were randomly assigned either a standard clickwrap presentation (Group A, n=26) or a chunked visually signalled presentation (Group B, n=24) of a fictional social media services Terms of Service. Comprehension was measured through free recall, multiple choice questions, and Likert scale questions, with dwell time recorded as a supplementary behavioural indicator. No statistically significant difference in multiple choice scores was found between conditions (Mann-Whitney U, p=0.203). However, free recall and thematic analysis indicated greater information encoding in the chunked condition, with 29% recalling nothing compared to 65% in the standard presentation. Dwell time distribution and Likert responses further suggested differences in engagement between the two groups. Findings provide partial support for Cognitive Load Theory and confirm that habitual acceptance of Terms of Service without reading is already established among adolescents, consistent with patterns observed in adult populations.