Prior work on dark patterns, or manipulative online interfaces, suggests they have potentially detrimental effects on user autonomy. Dark pattern features, like those designed for attention capture, can potentially extend platform sessions beyond that users would have otherwise intended. Existing research, however, has not formally measured the quantitative effects of these features on user engagement in subscription video-on-demand platforms (SVODs). In this work, we conducted an experimental study with 76 Netflix users in the US to analyze the impact of a specific attention capture feature, autoplay, on key viewing metrics. We found that disabling autoplay on Netflix significantly reduced key content consumption aggregates, including average daily watching and average session length, partly filling the evidentiary gap regarding the empirical effects of dark pattern interfaces. We paired the experimental analysis with users' perceptions of autoplay and their viewing behaviors, finding that participants were split on whether the effects of autoplay outweigh its benefits, albeit without knowledge of the study findings. Our findings strengthen the broader argument that manipulative interface designs can and do affect users in potentially damaging ways, highlighting the continued need for considering user well-being and varied preferences in interface design.

翻译：先前关于暗黑模式（即操纵性在线界面）的研究表明，这些模式可能对用户自主性产生不利影响。暗黑模式的功能（例如专为吸引注意力而设计的功能）可能延长用户在平台上的使用时长，超出其原本的预期。然而，现有研究尚未正式量化评估这些功能在订阅型视频点播平台中对用户参与度的具体影响。本研究通过在美国对76名Netflix用户进行实验，分析了特定注意力捕获功能——自动播放——对关键观看指标的影响。我们发现，在Netflix上禁用自动播放功能会显著降低关键内容消费的总体指标，包括日均观看时长和平均会话时长，这在一定程度上填补了关于暗黑模式界面实证效应的证据空白。我们结合实验分析与用户对自动播放功能的感知及其观看行为进行综合考察，发现尽管参与者不了解研究结果，但他们对于自动播放的效应是否超过其益处的看法存在分歧。我们的研究结果进一步证实了更广泛的论点：操纵性界面设计能够且确实会以潜在有害的方式影响用户，这凸显了在界面设计中持续关注用户福祉和多样化偏好的必要性。