SUMMARY

“With election day around the corner, and the rate of political violence in the U.S. increasing, the urgent challenge that digital tools pose to how we think critically about politics is becoming an emergency. The man who allegedly attacked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband last week – striking him in the head with a hammer after demanding to know Speaker Pelosi’s location – was, in part, radicalized online. As shocking as this crime was, it was only the latest example in a disturbing trend of extremism in the United States being accelerated by digital media. As we discovered in our research on digital cognition, the U.S. desperately needs to help voters grapple with the information overload, emotional manipulation, and shortcuts in reasoning that digital tools provoke.”

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