Let’s protect reason and human autonomy against manipulative choice architectures, attention-grabbing techniques, and the spread of false information.
And along the way, we’ll use psychological science to empower Internet users to gain some control over their digital environments.
Let’s get started. Let’s get started.Recognizing the role of psychological science in improving our digital world
Our online ecosystem, the computer-mediated technologies that give us constant access to information, and the digital technologies allowing us to engage, share, and connect with others, are everywhere. Their largely unregulated, unfettered proliferation and mass adoption have created a melting pot of overlapping socio-cultural challenges across a spectrum of spaces, including those of law and ethics, technology, education, economy, politics, and the psychological and social sciences, to name a few.
As a technologist, I strongly advocate for technology innovation that helps to solve worldly challenges and improve the overall human condition.
But as a media psychologist and technology ethicist, I believe that technological advancements should not come at the cost of human-centeredness or impose lasting, detrimental effects on society at large.
By leveraging the knowledge and breadth of our psychological sciences, I aspire to improve our online spaces by:
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advocating for benevolent technological changes to infuse more balance between people and commercial interests
2
contributing to and expanding on research that can inform policy interventions in online spaces
3
improving the public’s interactions with our complex and overarching digital world via digital-media literacy
The ethical challenges that modern digital environments pose to human autonomy and decision making — and infringe on people’s privacy or influence their voting behavior — include, but are not limited to:
Persuasive and Manipulative Choice Architectures
Strategic design of online environments and user interfaces purposefully designed to steer people’s online behavior in the service of commercial interests challenge decision autonomy and informed choice
AI-Assisted Information Architectures
AI-powered algorithms used to filter and mediate information online, such as those deployed for targeted advertising, personalized recommendations, and news feed curation mechanisms, challenge decision autonomy and control our information environments.
False & Misleading Information
Incendiary or misleading online content not based on factual knowledge or evidence and seeking to permeate inaccurate beliefs or undermine trust challenges reasoning, discernment of truth, and civil public discourse.
Distracting Environments
Online spaces optimized to monopolize and commodify human attention and influence online behaviors interfere with people’s attention, decision-making, and cognitive control.
Leverage psychological science insights to conceive interventions, boost information literacy, combat rising incivility, and curb the worst excesses of manipulative choice architectures.
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The time to infuse empathy and human-centeredness into our online spaces is now.
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My training in media psychology, cyberpsychology, political psychology, and neuromarketing (combined with my extensive background in digital strategy, online communications, and advertising/product design), can help organizations:
- diffuse political extremism
- mitigate the spread of disinformation
- increase civility in online conversations
- protect reason and human autonomy
- design digital products leveraging aspects of positive (media) psychology
- enhance people’s agency in their digital environments
Mediated technology design initiatives I can direct or support:
- Behavior Design
- Art Direction
- Visual Storytelling
- Ideation + Storyboarding
- Product Design + Roadmapping
Additional facets I can help implement:
- Audience Engagement
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Semiotic + Narrative Analysis
- Multichannel Strategies
- Integration + Accountability