Not So Digital After All? A Look at the Nature of Digital Nudging through the Prism of the Digital Object Concept

Abstract

Digital nudging is an effective way to influence individuals' behavior when they interact with digital computers. However, scholars only partially discussed how digital technology transforms nudging mechanisms in digital choice environments. Considering the recently proposed research agenda on digital objects, studying the 'digital' component of digital nudging can help to understand how the 'digital' transforms the phenomenon of nudging and creates new, digital-only methods of influencing individuals' behavior. This paper investigates the current state of the literature on the context of digital nudging and discusses the role of digital objects in nudging with examples of how digital properties can transform the mechanisms of nudging.