
You have already added 0 works in your ORCID record related to the merged Research product.
You have already added 0 works in your ORCID record related to the merged Research product.
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write('<div id="oa_widget"></div>');
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="https://beta.openaire.eu/index.php?option=com_openaire&view=widget&format=raw&projectId=undefined&type=result"></script>');
-->
</script>
Citizens Versus the Internet: Confronting Digital Challenges With Cognitive Tools

pmid: 33325331
pmc: PMC7745618
[This article is now published open access in the Psychological Science in the Public Interest https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100620946707. Please refer to and cite the published paper.] The Internet has evolved into a ubiquitous and indispensable digital environment in which people communicate, seek information, and make decisions. Despite offering various benefits, online environments are also replete with smart, highly adaptive choice architectures designed primarily to maximize commercial interests, capture and sustain users’ attention, monetize user data, and predict and influence future behavior. This online landscape holds multiple negative consequences for society, such as a decline in human autonomy, rising incivility in online conversation, the facilitation of political extremism, and the spread of disinformation. Benevolent choice architects working with regulators may curb the worst excesses of manipulative choice architectures, yet the strategic advantages, resources, and data remain with commercial players. One way to address this imbalance is with interventions that empower Internet users to gain some control over their digital environments, in part by boosting their information literacy and their cognitive resistance to manipulation. Our goal is to present a conceptual map of interventions that are based on insights from psychological science. We begin by systematically outlining how online and offline environments differ despite being increasingly inextricable. We then identify four major types of challenges that users encounter in online environments: persuasive and manipulative choice architectures, AI-assisted information architectures, false and misleading information, and distractive environments. Next, we turn to how psychological science can inform interventions to counteract these challenges of the digital world. After distinguishing between three types of behavioral and cognitive interventions—nudges, technocognition, and boosts—we focus in on boosts, of which we identify two main groups: (1) those aimed at enhancing people’s agency in their digital environments (e.g., self-nudging, deliberate ignorance) and (2) those aimed at boosting competences of reasoning and resilience to manipulation (e.g., simple decision aids, inoculation). These cognitive tools are designed to foster the civility of online discourse and protect reason and human autonomy against manipulative choice architectures, attention-grabbing techniques, and the spread of false information.
- Max Planck Society Germany
- University of Western Australia Australia
- Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research Germany
- University of Bristol United Kingdom
/dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/tedcog, decision autonomy, 070, boosting, name=Memory, Decision Making, 150, Social and Behavioral Sciences, algorithms, Choice Behavior, Article, Decision Support Techniques, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/cognitive_science, false news, Cognition, Memory, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/tedcog; name=TeDCog, technocognition, cognitive tools, name=Cognitive Science, Humans, Attention, digital environment, Internet, Information Dissemination, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/psyc_memory; name=Memory, TeDCog, PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences, disinformation, attention economy, bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences, nudging, Cognitive Science, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/cognitive_science; name=Cognitive Science, name=TeDCog, behavioral policy, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/psyc_memory
/dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/tedcog, decision autonomy, 070, boosting, name=Memory, Decision Making, 150, Social and Behavioral Sciences, algorithms, Choice Behavior, Article, Decision Support Techniques, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/cognitive_science, false news, Cognition, Memory, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/tedcog; name=TeDCog, technocognition, cognitive tools, name=Cognitive Science, Humans, Attention, digital environment, Internet, Information Dissemination, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/psyc_memory; name=Memory, TeDCog, PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences, disinformation, attention economy, bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences, nudging, Cognitive Science, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/cognitive_science; name=Cognitive Science, name=TeDCog, behavioral policy, /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/psyc_memory
citations This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).242 popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.Top 0.1% influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).Top 1% impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.Top 1%
