Project description
Why we keep scrolling through bad news
Billions of people spend many hours scrolling through bad news, a habit known as ‘doomscrolling’. This constant stream of negative content is linked to declining mental health and poses a growing problem for society. With this in mind, the ERC-funded WiseSeek project looks into why our brains seek out information that makes us feel worse. Combining psychology and neuroscience, researchers are studying how dopamine and our internal reward systems assign value to the news we consume. They are tracking neural signals to see exactly how these habits take hold. The project’s goal is to find ways to break the cycle through attention-based interventions, potentially leading to new tools for digital well-being and better mental health policies.
Objective
Each day, 60% of the world’s population engages in online information consumption, often encountering negative content. For example, social media contains three times more negative than positive information. This exposure to negative information has been linked to adverse effects on people’s well-being and mental health. For example, persistent engagement with negative online content, often termed ‘doomscrolling’, heightens the risk of psychopathological conditions. This is an issue for both individuals grappling with deteriorating mental health and governments contending with such a decline. WiseSeek aims to confront this challenge by developing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mechanisms underlying decisions to consume information with such negative consequences, referred to as doom information consumption. First, I propose a new hypothesis that doom information consumption arises as a result of altered reinforcement learning dynamics within the value of information, and I introduce a novel computational model to test this. Second, I hypothesize that the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) plays a key role in computing such a value to guide information consumption. I will test this hypothesis using an innovative methodology that measures subsecond fluctuations in DA signals in conscious humans and pharmacological interventions. Third, I will test whether attention-based interventions can interfere with how the value of information is computed to change information consumption. Finally, lab findings will be translated to the real world by developing a novel web-based methodology. Laying at the frontiers of cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and computer science, WiseSeek will provide the first insights into the mechanisms underlying decisions to consume information with negative consequences on people’s well-being and mental health, with major implications for behavioral science, clinical psychology, public policy, and society as a whole.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1050 BRUXELLES
Belgium
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