Negotiating the Digital Dystopia: The Role of Emotion, Atmosphere and Social Contact in Making Decisions about Information Use in Physical and Digital Contexts

During the pandemic we have found that the experience of interaction online, whether with other people, or with information is very different from what we do in person. And this experience is seldom compared favourably to physical, interaction. Thanks to the A level algorithm fiasco, algorithms are treated with growing scepticism and social media is increasingly regarded as intrinsically toxic associated with deadly misinformation, racism and hate speech. Yet, as information professionals know, digital delivery is ideal for certain types of information, such as journal articles or digital images of rare manuscripts. AI offers the potential to interrogate and make connections between digital collections at an unprecedented scale. But can we build trust if users regard digital interaction and computational techniques with scepticism or even hostility? This article will explore these questions, and consider the importance of emotion and affect in interaction with digital and physical information environments.