| Factors of biased behaviors online | Context |
| Agnotology | Three studies revolving around the mechanisms of ignorance are identified: One is about a native state, or the mind before it has or is aware of knowledge. Another is about there being a lost realm or selective choice (Frazier, 2016). Either information was never seen because it never came up in the search or the person dishing out information did not see it before adding it to a database. This is an unintentional consequence of the degree of attentiveness of a role one takes in the search process (Frazier, 2016) [14] . The third classification is a strategic ploy, which implies that information was deliberately censored or manipulated (which happens a lot in magazines and newspapers, and with fake technology, where AI-generated content looks real but is not). |
| Apophenia | Online, apophenia is more of a problem with conspiracy theories and is important in the era of cognitive overload. We make connections and meanings about irrelevant pieces of information, informed by the knowledge we already have, resulting in cognitive overload and neurotic apophenia. Feelings are mental associations that occur when we are unsure about how to think about something. When it becomes problematic, the memory of a feeling and the creation of a narrative is not reevaluated for validity, creating and using biases. Biased memes can also shape the fear of difference, creating discriminatory behavior. Fear of losing the sense of familiarity is influenced by our idea of psychological security. There is the illusion of knowing that we make authority. For example, many may assume communism is dangerous but not understand what it is. Apophenia is important to understand in the era of conspiracies and paranoia. |
| Psychological time | Memory and biases like the halo effect or duration neglect impact the sense of things as we experience them. Computers let people time travel. Online details may serve as distraction. Can we observe and make responsible use of free will? The past impacts our current information processing. Time in an experience is not remembered, affecting the weight of meaning or lack it [15] . |
| Punishment and reward modalities | This can be observed beneath the narrative of “publish or perish” which restrains a person from innovation, time, and space needed to inquire and think clearly. It may cause functional stupidity also. |
| Decrease in inattentiveness and multiplied variables of distraction | This can lead to and be caused by information overload and the inability to manage it. |
| Extended mind thesis | Information is stored to represent a source outside of ourselves to help our memory, as an example of a cognitive tool, or idea of self, psychological factor. Having a digital self is something completely new (Book of Abstracts), and less fragile, than for example, a sketch or diary [16] . Based on criticism, these theorists refined and defended their thesis. Their points include: When a device is paired with cognitive tools, there must be a functional role or they cannot be extensions of the mind. What has considered an extension is a perceived system, not just part of it. A computer itself, for example, differs from the information stored in it. Lastly, there are non-neural ways to attain and replicate information [16] . |