Playful but Persuasive: Deceptive Designs and Advertising Strategies in Popular Mobile Apps for Children

Mobile gaming apps are woven into children's daily lives. Given their ongoing cognitive and emotional development, children are especially vulnerable and depend on designs that safeguard their well-being. When apps feature manipulative interfaces or heavy advertising, they may exert undue influence on young users, contributing to prolonged screen time, disrupted self-regulation, and accidental in-app purchases. In this study, we examined 20 popular, free-to-download children's apps in German-speaking regions to assess the prevalence of deceptive design patterns and advertising. Despite platform policies and EU frameworks like the General Data Protection Regulation and the Digital Services Act, every app contained interface manipulations intended to nudge, confuse, or pressure young users, averaging nearly six distinct deceptive patterns per app. Most also displayed high volumes of non-skippable ads, frequently embedded within core gameplay. These findings indicate a systemic failure of existing safeguards and call for stronger regulation, greater platform accountability, and child-centered design standards.