“Mindless scroll” is an oxymoron. We take in information from all around us - social media included - which becomes our reality. We make sense of what we take in via narrative practices, a process, it has been said, that shapes persons. 

Just how powerful of a medium for shaping selves is social media?

Using topics our local student population find interesting like personality assessment and gender identity and affirming care, we are creating social media-like content following design principles from both the learning sciences and media-instructional design. With a pre-post assessment design we measure participants' existing knowledge / beliefs, present them with a  content-design, then assess comprehension, experience, and beliefs again immediately + a week later. Results so far are intriguing and perhaps not what you you might expect! Carefully designed "maximal" content feels easier to take in and even brief encounters causes lasting change in knowledge.