To be or not to be algorithm aware: a question of a new digital divide?

TLDR

Algorithms increasingly shape internet services—from music recommendations to policing, health care, and social benefits—and their impact on information access and agency makes algorithm awareness a potentially critical issue. The study investigates whether algorithm awareness creates a new digital divide. The authors surveyed the Norwegian population to assess levels of algorithm awareness and attitudes toward algorithmic systems. The research reveals demographic differences in algorithm awareness, links attitudes toward algorithmic recommendations to awareness and demographics, and identifies six distinct awareness typologies via cluster analysis.

Abstract

Algorithms are an increasingly important element of internet infrastructure in that they are used to make decisions about everything from mundane music recommendations through to more profound and oftentimes life changing ones such as policing, health care or social benefits. Given algorithmic systems’ impact and sometimes harm on people’s everyday life, information access and agency, awareness of algorithms has the potential to be a critical issue. We, therefore, ask whether having awareness of algorithms or not corresponds to a new reinforced digital divide. This study examines levels of awareness and attitudes toward algorithms across the population of the highly digitized country of Norway. Our exploratory research finds clear demographic differences regarding levels of algorithms awareness. Furthermore, attitudes to algorithm driven recommendations (e.g., YouTube and Spotify), advertisements and content (e.g., personalized news feeds in social media and online newspaper) are associated with both the level of algorithm awareness and demographic variables. A cluster analysis facilitates an algorithm awareness typology of six groups: the unaware, the uncertain, the affirmative, the neutral, the sceptic and the critical.