Doomsurfing, doomscrolling or zombie scrolling. These new additions to the tech vocabulary have become part of our everyday routine, scrolling endlessly through social media feeds. Furthermore, some users report a sense of compulsion, a decrease in mental wellbeing and an increased sense of distraction. A common complaint among users harks back to the Facebook newsfeed. In a field experiment with real Facebook users (), we investigate the difference between a strict newsfeed diet (where the newsfeed is automatically reduced to a minimum) and self-regulated newsfeed diet (where the newsfeed is reduced, but users can then manage its content). Our results indicate that both of these newsfeed diets are effective at reducing the time spent on Facebook’s platform ( for the strict diet, % for the self-regulated diet). Our findings also suggest that these design interventions come with positive and negative user experiences such as increased self-awareness and fear of missing out (FOMO).

Research output related to digital nudging has increased ten-fold over the last five years. Nudging in the digital realm differs from its analog counterpart in important ways. For instance, online, choice architectures can be interconnected and personalized using real time data. In the face of this development, it is crucial to understand the current state of the literature and to map out possible research gaps. This paper addresses this issue and provides a systematic review of empirical studies where digital nudges have been evaluated. The systematic review covers 73 peer-reviewed papers containing 109 separate studies where 231 digital nudges have been evaluated. Our results lead to nine open research questions to be addressed in the future by the research community.