The science of screens: How your device affects buying choices

Photo by Taras Shypka on Unsplash

In today’s digital age, we seamlessly transition between devices — tablets, phones, desktops, and TVs.

But new research reveals that these formats aren’t just about convenience; they can significantly influence our purchasing decisions.

SO WHAT DO WE KNOW?

Touchscreens and desktop activate different thinking styles

• Touchscreens activate System 1 thinking (intuitive, emotional)
• Desktops activate System 2 thinking (rational, analytical)
• Short form video causes impairments in analytic thinking because of swiping. Swiping on mobile devices can impair critical thinking, making users more susceptible to misinformation. An experiment looking at TikTok showed that the specific effect of swiping caused people to do more poorly on a critical thinking task, oddly enough, explained by reductions in positive feeling with swiping (not explained by cognitive overload or control).

Thinking styles change purchase tendencies

• System 1 thinking leads to higher emotional/intuitive purchases (hedonic) (i.e., an electric car because the dashboard looks cool and futuristic, because you like how smooth it feels when it starts)
• System 2 thinking drives practical/functional purchases (utilitarian)(i.e., an electric car because it has better fuel efficiency, it had the safety rating you wanted, etc.) [Want to know more about hedonic and utilitarian purchases and how it affects WOM?]

Screens affect purchase intent. A study showed that:

• Touchscreens increase emotional purchase intentions driven by System 1 thinking
• Desktops increase more practice purchase intentions driven by System 2 thinking

From Zhu, Y., & Meyer, J. (2017). Getting in touch with your thinking style: How touchscreens influence purchase. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 38, 51–58.

SO WHAT…

• Consuming content on mobile especially through swiping can more easily propagate misinformation because people are not critically evaluating the information they’re seeing as much as if they were on a desktop. This could also imply that scams could be more successful on mobile vs. desktops.
• Brands should consider adjusting their advertising on mobile vs. desktop to account for the different mental states and information that people are attuned to — mobile advertising should be more emotion and storytelling heavy whereas desktop (and possibly TV) advertising should consider show practical features and specs.
• My conjecture — established brands would do well with System 1 thinking — people automatically will feel more confident about that brand. Challenger brands do well with System 2 thinking — people will think more critically and review more sources and may be more open to rational benefits of the challenger brand.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Save your purchase decisions for your desktop
• Design to reduce misinformation on mobile devices with prominent visual nudges that increase System 2 thinking (i.e., YouTube accreditation markers for health professionals, Search verification badges, etc.)
• Be extra vigilant when consuming information on mobile devices — since we’re less inclined to critically evaluate content
• If you find yourself endlessly swiping, take a break — it could be affecting your mood and your ability to think clearly
• Balance your thinking. Don’t entirely discount System 1 thinking. Intuition and emotions are valuable, especially if you’re an expert in a subject. If you know what you’re doing, sometimes following your gut is the right move
• When you need to focus and think critically (say, for work), put your phone down and switch to a desktop.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

• Zhu, Y., & Meyer, J. (2017). Getting in touch with your thinking style: How touchscreens influence purchase. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 38, 51–58.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Jiang, Q., & Ma, L. (2024). Swiping more, thinking less: Using TikTok hinders analytic thinking. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 18(3).

WHO IS PSY.KO?

PsykoBabble is a curation of some of my favorite psych concepts and also the latest and greatest in the realms of social psychology. Why? I have a PhD in cultural and digital psychology — this newsletter helps me stay on top of a field I love so much, share what I’ve found, and constantly push psychology’s application to life and work in meaningful ways.