Is Social Media Making Us Dumber? A Pulp Analysis of Cognitive Shortcuts in Digital Discourse

Digital platforms that reward attention, speed, and social comparison promote "shortcut cognition"—a mode of thought characterized by reactive belief formation and weakened analytical reasoning, measurable through attention span, content comprehension, and belief calibration metrics.

This paper argues that social media norms—especially compulsive monitoring and rapid reaction—encourage cognitive shortcuts that crowd out slower analytical reasoning and reshape belief formation. Using the "watching" framing as an entry point, it connects Carr's divided-attention thesis and recent short-form video consumption findings to platform incentive structures, showing how the architecture of engagement-optimized platforms systematically rewards the cognitive patterns most likely to undermine critical thinking.

The paper concludes with a framework for measuring shortcut cognition effects across populations and a set of design interventions—friction, reflection prompts, source labeling—that platforms and educators can deploy to reintroduce the conditions for deliberative reasoning without requiring wholesale abstinence from social media.