An Exploration of how Trust Online Relates to Psychological and Subjective Wellbeing.

Internet users often report feelings of stress, anxiety, and a lack of control, often related to uncertainty about the use of algorithms and autonomous systems (AS) behind what they encounter. This may lead to a loss of trust in the services, content, and websites people encounter online. In order to ensure that the online world contributes to human flourishing, it is important to understand how both trust and wellbeing manifest online. This paper describes an online questionnaire exploring the relationships between factors related to trust and psychological and subjective wellbeing, as well as online activity and digital confidence. Results suggest that trust is important to people online but in practice is quite low, and that positive measures of wellbeing outweigh the negative, but more could be done to design AS in a responsible, trustworthy, and wellbeing-affirming manner, particularly considering ways to enhance human autonomy and competence. Suggestions are made for how designers might consider trust and wellbeing when approaching the creation and presentation of online AS.