Who Put That There?
On a trip to the shops, look at what sits at a child's eye level, at the end of the aisle, and by the till. Somebody chose that order. A way into how feeds and search results decide what you see first.
Your child can explain that the order in which things are shown is a choice somebody made, and that it shapes what people pick.
What you need
- Nothing. Any shop works: a supermarket, a corner shop, a market stall
Why it works
A shop is a feed you can walk through. Where a product sits is often planned, and some shops are paid by makers for the best spots. Feeds, app stores, and search results work in a similar way: the first thing you see was put there for a reason. A child who has crouched down to look at what is placed at their eye level has a real, physical sense of what “ranked first” means.
How to play
- In one aisle, ask your child to crouch to their own eye level. What do they see? Then look at an adult’s eye level. What is different?
- Look at the end of an aisle and the area by the till. What kinds of things are there?
- Find something your family actually buys. Where is it? Was it easy to find?
- Ask: who do you think decided where everything goes? Why might they have put it there?
Make it easier, make it harder
- Easier: just compare what is on the bottom shelf with what is on the top shelf.
- Harder: design your own shop on paper at home. What would you put first, and who would that help?
Talk about it
- Did you ever pick something just because it was right in front of you?
- When you open a video app or a game store, who decides what you see first?
- Should a shop or an app tell you when someone paid for a spot at the front?
If your child asks
“How does a video app decide what to show me?” Usually a computer program ranks thousands of videos and shows the ones it predicts you will watch longest. It learns from what you, and people like you, watched before. That is not the same as showing you what is best for you, and the people who run the app choose what it aims for.
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Free to copy and reuse for classroom, tutoring, and family use.