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Read more: Beyond the Phone Ban: What Italy and the Netherlands Get Differently About Digital EducationAcross Europe, schools are tightening restrictions on smartphones. But not all phone bans reflect the same idea of education. The Netherlands and Italy are taking notably different approaches. In 2024, the Netherlands introduced a national “agreement”1 limiting smartphones and other devices in schools. The goal was to reduce distraction and improve the school environment, while…
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Read more: The Illusion of Connection: Why AI Chatbots May Make Us Lonelier“It’s better than nothing.”“No one likes me but AI does.” These are not extreme opinions. They reflect something increasingly visible: for many people, chatbots are no longer just tools, but something closer to companions. They are used to talk, to vent, to pass the time, to feel heard. In a context where loneliness is rising,…
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Read more: How to Reduce Time on Social Media: 10 Practical StrategiesIn the previous article, I explored why it is so difficult to stop scrolling: the absence of stopping cues and the structure of variable rewards make the experience continuous and hard to interrupt. If social media is part of everyday life—for staying connected, accessing information, or learning—the goal is not to stop using it, but…
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Read more: When Scrolling Doesn’t Stop: Design, Responsibility, and AwarenessA recent jury verdict in Los Angeles concluded that Meta and Google can be held responsible for contributing to the mental health harm of a young user who had been exposed to their platforms from an early age1. The case concerns one individual, but it reflects a broader development: questions about social media are increasingly moving from public debate…
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Read more: Trust in the Age of Generative AITrust is one of those concepts we use every day without thinking too much about it. We trust people, institutions, technologies, and countless invisible systems that make modern life possible. Yet when we try to explain what trust actually is, the concept quickly becomes more complex. The sociologist and philosopher Niklas Luhmann famously wrote1 that without trust…
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Read more: Persuasion in the Age of Generative AIPersuasion is as old as human relationships. Influencing beliefs and behavior has always been part of social life. Aristotle already identified three fundamental dimensions of persuasion: Over time, technological developments — especially in advertising — have changed the scale, personalization, and automation of persuasive communication. The rise of the internet further expanded scale and data collection, increasing the precision…
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Read more: Digital Isolation and Online Scams: When Safeguards Are MissingThe Absence of Safeguards in Online Scams In victimology, the risk of becoming a victim does not depend solely on individual characteristics, but also on the context in which people live and act. One of the most widely used frameworks to understand victimization is the Routine Activity Theory (RAT), developed by Cohen and Felson (1979)1.…
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Read more: “It Won’t Happen to Me”: When Confidence Becomes VulnerabilityMany of the decisions we make online are not the result of slow, deliberate reasoning. They often happen in contexts of haste, distraction, and information overload. Under these conditions, our brain relies on mental shortcuts known in psychology as cognitive biases. Biases are not random mistakes or signs of naivety. They are systematic distortions of judgment…
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Read more: The Privacy Paradox: Why We Share Even When We Know It’s RiskyMany people claim to care about their privacy. They express concerns about the collection of personal data, the use of information online, and the potential consequences of their digital exposure.Yet, in practice, they continue to share data, accept terms of use without reading them, and use digital services that make extensive use of their personal…
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Read more: Self-disclosure: When what you share is used against you (and others)The term self-disclosure refers to the process by which a person shares personal information about themselves. Self-disclosure is a fundamental component of human relationships: sharing personal information helps build trust, strengthen bonds, and maintain social relationships. With the shift from offline to online – and in particular with the rise of social media – the nature…