From scrolling through TikTok to asking Google for homework help, algorithms are shaping young people’s everyday lives in powerful and often invisible ways. But how well do they understand these hidden influences? For www.parenting.digital, Lizzy Winstone highlights how improving algorithmic literacy can empower young people to navigate the digital world safely and positively. Drawing on insights from her Churchill Fellowship, she shares global best practices and offers timely recommendations for embedding algorithmic literacy into the UK curriculum—just as the country revisits its educational priorities for a digital future.
As digital media become ever more integral to daily life, it is critical to understand how to maximise their positive impact on wellbeing whilst minimising harms. Social media, search engines and recommendation algorithms shape the information and experiences young people encounter online. Algorithmic literacy – critical understanding of how algorithms influence content, decisions, and outcomes, and the functional skills needed to navigate these – is increasingly recognised as a key factor in digital wellbeing.
However, most young people have limited awareness of the inner workings of these algorithms or their potential implications for wellbeing. This is particularly problematic for young people experiencing poor mental health, who may find it difficult to self-regulate their social media use, and who are vulnerable to unintentional exposure to harmful content. By engaging with any mental health related content, algorithmic recommendations will quickly include more of the same and increasingly extreme content, including potentially graphic or triggering images of self-harm and suicide.
Through a Churchill Fellowship undertaken in 2024, I interviewed policy and academic experts in Canada, Finland and Australia on international best practices in supporting young people to develop algorithmic literacy. Experts emphasised that digital competencies – to which algorithmic literacy is now fundamental – are an anessential life skill, necessary for health, social and economic empowerment.
Key findings
- Experts agreed that a lack of algorithmic literacy is not unique to the UK – while good practice resources are sparse, the best examples are interactive, creative and visually engaging (and sometimes gamified).
- Anxiety around algorithms and poor social media literacy more broadly is a global public health issue that needs to be addressed across schools, families and communities.
- National Media Literacy Weeks can be an effective tool for awareness raising and engaging with all stakeholders.
- Digital literacy is worth prioritising as a core, standalone subject (separate from computer science or Personal Social and Health Education, PSHE), with a flexible curriculum that can be adapted to keep up with technological advances.
- Algorithmic literacy is worth embedding across all digital and media literacy themes within the school curriculum and extra-curricular programmes.
- Critical media literacy is worth embedding across all curriculum subjects to improve teacher confidence, ensure coverage from multiple perspectives and establish cross-cutting links.
- Adequate provision of teacher training and high-quality, accessible resources are essential for the effectiveness of improvements to the algorithmic literacy curriculum.
- Targeted programmes to enhance digital literacy in disadvantaged groups can be an effective extra-curricula complement to standard education.
- Functional skills must be combined with critical thinking and mental health literacy to make digital media and algorithmic literacy effective for mental health prevention.
Algorithmic literacy is crucial to equipping young people with the knowledge and skills required to navigate the digital world safely and positively. With the 2024/25 review of the UK National Curriculum underway, this is an excellent opportunity for the UK to be among the global leaders in supporting young people to leave school fully equipped for a life in digital society.
Based on key themes generated from the interviews with international experts, I have developed a brief set of recommendations for the Department for Education (DfE) and other UK policy stakeholders.
Key recommendations
- DfE should commission an independent review of digital, (social) media and algorithmic literacy provision across UK schools, and a review of where these topics fit best within the broader curriculum. This will support teachers to identify the relevance of digital media literacy to their subject area and how both can be mutually enhanced through making links in lessons.
- Project Evolve should ensure that each strand of the Education for a Connected World framework includes comprehensive consideration and discussion of algorithms as appropriate, integrating algorithmic literacy within the Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) and digital skills curricula.
- Updates to the digital media literacy curriculum by DfE should include balanced content, not overly focused on risk but on resilience, digital citizenship, active participation and scope for change, e.g., reducing bias in algorithms, harnessing social media algorithms for good (social activism).
- DfE should introduce a standalone compulsory Key Stage 4 qualification in digital literacy for all young people across the UK, with a substantial algorithmic literacy component. This must extend beyond functional skills to critical literacy, with curriculum input from both experts in technology and AI, and experts in media literacy, public health, psychology and sociology. For example, young people must understand how to use AI as well as the ethical issues that accompany this, e.g. bias in AI and algorithms, and the societal reflections and impact of this.
- DfE should provide comprehensive training and continuing professional development opportunities to teachers delivering the digital literacy curriculum, including both computer science and social studies perspectives. Digital literacy should be seen as the responsibility of all subject teachers.
- For specific educational resources targeting algorithmic literacy, DfE should consider commissioning or adapting creative, interactive and gamified approaches to make concrete the workings and implications of social media algorithms.
- DfE and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) should review provision and evaluate targeted programs to enhance digital literacy in disadvantaged groups (e.g., accessible and inclusive after school and holiday clubs). Ensure these programmes include critical algorithmic literacy in addition to functional skills.
- The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) should commission and attract sponsorship for a UK media literacy week within the global programme, including high-quality and evidence-based events, workshops and resources within schools, libraries, healthcare settings, and other public spaces – aimed at enhancing digital, (social) media and algorithmic literacy among all population groups.
Featured image: Illustration by Yulia Saraswati
A version of this blog is reflected in a policy briefing available here.
First published at www.parenting.digital, this post represents the views of the authors and not the position of the Parenting for a Digital Future blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
You are free to republish the text of this article under Creative Commons licence crediting www.parenting.digital and the author of the piece. Please note that images are not included in this blanket licence.