There’s a new app game in the making called Cranky Uncle that is designed to act as a “vaccination” against climate crisis denial and fake news. It works by teaching players about misinformation tactics.
It is similar to the Bad News game, which was made with the help of social psychologist Sander van der Linden, and was designed to teach people how to spot fake news. That app partly inspired the Cranky Uncle project.
John Cook, the creator of the Cranky Uncle app and research assistant professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, said:
I realized that the tools of gamification that Sander was exploring were very applicable to the logical fallacy framework that I was working with.
How The Game Works
The app explains typical science denial techniques. For example, logical fallacies, the use of fake experts, cherry-picking data, and impossible expectations. The lessons prepare the player with the skills and knowledge needed to detect inaccuracies online and in the real world.
The concept of the app is the inoculation theory. Meaning, the game is based on the idea that people can be protected against influence if they are exposed to a weaker form of the threat – in this situation, the threat is climate crisis denial.
Cook said:
This game has the potential to inoculate a generation against misinformation. But it’s such a big problem, how do we meet the size of the challenge? Technology and gamification is a really powerful tool in being able to do that.
Playing The Game
Users will be instructed to navigate a series of cartoon scenarios. These are the lessons that explain how denial tactics are employed. An example scene for demonstrating the use of anecdotal arguments showed Cranky Uncle shivering in the cold declaring that global warming doesn’t exist; then, they show him outside at nighttime proclaiming the sun doesn’t exist.
After the educational cartoons, they’ll be asked questions to test their knowledge.
Testing The Prototype
Cook introduced a prototype version of the game to students at community colleges and universities. He said that after thirty minutes of playing the game, there was a noticeable improvement in the player’s critical thinking skills. The founder of the renowned climate blog Skeptical Science sees the game as a useful learning tool to be deployed in universities and schools across the globe, but particularly in America, where climate denial is prevalent.
A recent poll revealed that 13% of Americans think human activity is not responsible for the climate crisis. And, many others who do believe in the climate emergency don’t feel comfortable admitting it.
Cook said:
We need people talking about [the climate crisis] and building social momentum. The reason why people don’t talk about it is because they’re worried about pushback, and they’re not sure what to say. So, this game empowers people to feel confident talking about the issue because they understand the arguments better and they know how to respond.
Currently, Cook and his team at Autonomy Coop are still developing the app. They hope to raise money through a crowdfunding campaign to turn the Cranky Uncle game into a fully-fledged phone app by June 2020.
