Digital Distortions

Algorithmic Authority Bias You treat rankings, feeds, or AI output as proof something is true. 68 · High AA Virality as Truth You confuse popularity (likes, shares, views) with accuracy or importance. 67 · High VT Outrage Amplification You mistake emotional intensity for evidence - anger, fear, or disgust become proof that something is true, urgent, or malicious. 75 · Severe OA Doomscroll Determinism Because you see endless bad news, you conclude the world is mostly getting worse - and the feed becomes your forecast. 70 · High DD News-Finds-Me Perception You assume important news will find you through feeds and friends, so feeling informed replaces going to look. 63 · Moderate NFM Infinite-Scroll Time Distortion A bottomless feed can weaken your sense of duration - "just a minute" becomes an hour you cannot account for. 68 · High IST Notification Urgency Bias A badge, ping, or banner feels like an emergency - so you interrupt important work for low-stakes alerts. 70 · High NUB Context Collapse Mind Reading You infer intent and character from a post stripped of tone, audience, and context - and treat the fragment as the whole story. 65 · Moderate CC Reply-Latency Mind Reading A slow reply, or a fast one, gets read as rejection, anger, or an emergency. 68 · High RLM Screenshot Epistemology You treat cropped screenshots or clips as sufficient evidence - without checking the original source, timing, edits, or missing context. 67 · High SE Metric Fixation (KPI Morality) You treat what's measurable - followers, streaks, engagement - as what matters most. 71 · High MF Wearable Verdict A sleep score, readiness number, or step count matters more than how your body actually feels. 63 · Moderate WVe Parasocial Overconfidence You feel you know a public figure well enough to infer their motives from curated fragments - as if repeated viewing were personal acquaintance. 64 · Moderate PO Chatbot Mind Attribution A warm, fluent chat gets treated as understanding, care, or a promise of confidentiality. 67 · High CMA Comparison Feed Distortion Curated highlight reels become your social baseline - so ordinary life feels like falling behind. 73 · High CFD Filtered-Self Standard The edited photo becomes the face you think the mirror is supposed to match. 70 · High FSS Synthetic Consensus Bots, brigades, and fake engagement make a view look widely shared - so you treat manufactured agreement as the public. 75 · Severe SyC Comment Climate Distortion The people who comment get treated as the public, and their tone gets treated as evidence. 66 · High CCD Privacy Fatalism "I'm already tracked, so nothing matters" - fatalism that turns a real problem into an excuse for zero protection. 67 · High PrvF Search Knowledge Illusion You finish a search and feel the knowledge is now yours, because the answer was easy to reach. 58 · Moderate SKI Cyberchondria A symptom search climbs from an ordinary sensation to a serious disease, and the climb feels like a diagnosis. 69 · High Cyb AI Oracle Fallacy You treat fluent AI output as vetted expertise and confuse clarity with correctness. 66 · High AO AI Sycophancy The model agrees with you, and that agreement feels like an independent second opinion. 65 · Moderate ASy Prompt Overtrust You trust the answer because you trusted your prompt - as if clever wording could guarantee a true or complete result. 64 · Moderate PrO Automation Complacency You over-trust automated summaries and recommendations and skip verification. 64 · Moderate AC Hallucination Anchoring An AI-generated claim heard first becomes an anchor, even after corrections. 62 · Moderate HA Deepfake Cynicism (Liar's Dividend) "Anything could be fake" becomes an excuse to dismiss real evidence. 68 · High DC Detection Overconfidence You trust your own eye to catch fakes and false claims, so you skip the check. 66 · High DetO