Drawing from many disciplines, the report adopts a behavioural psychology perspective to argue that “social media changes people’s political behaviour”. Four pressure points are identified and analysed in detail: the attention economy; choice architectures; algorithmic content curation; and mis/disinformation. Policy implications are outlined in detail.

S. Lewandowsky, L. Smillie, D. Garcia, R. Hertwig, J. Weatherall, S. Egidy, R. Robertson, C. O’Connor, A. Kozyreva, P. Lorenz-Spreen, Y. Blaschke, M. Leiser, Technology and Democracy: Understanding the influence of online technologies on political behaviour and decision-making. EUR 30422 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg (2020).