In the previous chapters, the theoretical foundations upon which the design of digital behaviors is based were presented. This chapter proposes a methodology to organize all this knowledge into a valid process for the design and development of Digital Operant Boxes, or equivalently, digital services. The aim of designing digital behaviors is the creation of behavioral blueprints of the user's potential interactions with the digital service, in such a way that reflects their personal, historical, and digital characteristics. To achieve this objective, this chapter presents a methodology “Digital Behavioral Design” which consists of two main phases with several stages in each: (1) Digital Behavior Analysis and (2) Drives and Operants Design. The Digital Behavior Analysis comprises the following stages: “Goal-Directed Behavior Design” and “Digital Behavioral Map”. This phase focuses on the molar behaviors of the user when using the digital service and allows the designer to present an initial approximation of the service’s behavioral blueprints. The second phase consists of 5 stages: “Behavioral Profiling”, “Reinforcer Matrix”, “Behavioral Competition Analysis”, “Hierarchy Map of Reinforcers”, and “Digital Blueprint”. These stages enable the designer to optimize the drives and reinforcers identified in the first phase and to finely tune the digital service. Therefore, “Digital Behavioral Design” becomes a tool for the designer of digital behaviors that will allow them to apply knowledge from behavioral and cognitive sciences to the design of digital services.

Various cognitive theories indicate how the brain and technology have interacted with each other in an iterative and progressive manner to shape human cognition. Technologies are cultural tools that emerged as a human response to address specific needs. These technologies have allowed us to overcome various ecological, social, and cultural challenges that have impacted the phylogenetic development of higher cognitive abilities that have elevated Homo sapiens above other species. In the digital age, technologies such as the internet, smartphones, and the various software applications that derive from them play a fundamental role in how we relate to ourselves and society. Understanding how humans interact with these technologies, and the effect they have on altering brain architecture, is essential for designing and developing better tools. This chapter summarizes the key findings that explain the consequences of using these technologies on our development and how behavior, through these means, has given rise to digital behavior. Digital behavior is the compendium of interactions and their consequences that occur on the individual when using a digital service. The design of digital behaviors can be described as a new sub-field of Human Factors and Engineering Psychology, with habit formation and need satisfaction serving as the main epistemological core of digital behavior design. The design of digital behaviors is a necessary discipline that can enhance user engagement with these technologies by improving cognitive ergonomics, thereby more effectively addressing the needs that users bring to these types of services.

A set functor is an endofunctor on the category of sets. Although the topic of set functors is quite large, there are few if any chapter-length summaries directed to a researcher in the area of this book. This appendix collects the results on set functors that such a person ought to know, including the main preservation properties, such as preservation of weak pullbacks and of finite intersections. It contains the main examples of set functors used in the recent literature and a chart of their preservation properties. Studying monoid-valued functors, it connects the preservation properties of the functor to algebraic properties of the monoid. It presents Trnkova’s modification of a set functor at the empty set needed to obtain a functor preserving all finite intersections.

This appendix summarizes all of the known fixed point theorems used in the book. In addition to the best known results of this type, it also contains Markowsky’s characterization of directed-complete partial orders, Iwamura’s Lemma, and Pataraia’s ordinal-free version of Zermelo’s Theorem (see Chapter 6). It also mentions induction principles related to these fixed point theorems.

Given an endofunctor F we can form various derived endofunctors whose initial algebras and terminal coalgebras are related to those of F. The most prominent example are coproducts of F with constant functors, yielding free F-algebras, cofree F-coalgebras, and free completely iterative F-algebras. An initial algebra exists for a composite functor FG if and only if it does for GF. We also present Freyd’s Iterated Square Theorem and its converse: A functor F on category with finite coproducts has an initial algebra precisely when FF does. The chapter also studies functors on slice categories and product categories, coproducts of functors, double-algebras, and coproducts of monads.

Global platforms present novel challenges. They serve as powerful conduits of commerce and global community. Yet their power to influence political and consumer behavior is enormous. Their responsibility for the use of this power – for their content – is statutorily limited by national laws such as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US. National efforts to demand and guide appropriate content moderation, and to avoid private abuse of this power, is in tension with concern in liberal states to avoid excessive government regulation, especially of speech. Diverse and sometimes contradictory national rules responding to these tensions on a national basis threaten to splinter platforms, and reduce their utility to both wealthy and poor countries. This edited volume sets out to respond to the question whether a global approach can be developed to address these tensions while maintaining or even enhancing the social contribution of platforms.

The world has muddled through with limited and ambiguous understandings of the scope of national jurisdiction in a number of private and public law areas. In order to reduce the barriers of legal difference in the field of platform responsibility, states may begin by reducing areas of overlapping application of law, by agreeing on rules of exclusive jurisdiction. They may also agree on rules of national treatment, most favored nation treatment, and proportionality, or they may agree to harmonize rules. These incursions on national regulatory autonomy will require detailed, sector-specific negotiations, recognizing both the importance of global communications, and the importance of national regulatory autonomy.

This chapter studies results whereby a set functor is lifted to other categories, paying attention to whether the initial algebra and terminal coalgebra structures also lift. For example, given a set functor F having a terminal coalgebra and a lifting on either complete partial orders and complete metric spaces, the terminal coalgebra can be equipped with a canonical order or metric, respectively, so that this yields the terminal coalgebra for the lifting. Initial algebras, however, need not lift from Set to the other categories. We are also interested in specific liftings of F to pseudometric spaces, such as the Kantorovich and Wasserstein liftings. We study extensions to Kleisli categories and liftings to Eilenberg–Moore categories. We present results on coalgebraic trace semantics, and discuss examples such as the classical trace semantics of (probabilistic) labelled transition systems and languages accepted by nominal automata. We also study generalized determinization of coalgebras of functors arising from liftings to Eilenberg–Moore categories, leading to the coalgebraic language semantics. We see many instances of this semantics: the language semantics of non-deterministic weighted, probabilistic, and nominal automata; and also context-free languages.

This chapter highlights how the pursuit of pleasure, foundational concepts in the philosophy of Epicurus, continue to be essential pillars in the modern understanding of human behavior. These principles are expanded upon by incorporating learning theories formulated by Edward Lee Thorndike, specifically stimulus-response association and the Law of Effect, which posits that actions resulting in pleasure are likely to be repeated, thereby solidifying our understanding of habit formation. Under this paradigm, the influence of gratifying and aversive experiences on our learning and behavior is detailed, emphasizing their central role in the digital age. In particular, it explores how gratifying interactions with mobile devices promote habit formation. Additionally, emerging evidence supporting the concept of the ‘hedonic brain’ is examined, reflecting a neural predisposition towards maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, and highlighting the importance of dopaminergic brain structures in the storage of gratifying experiences, which will favor their future repetition. The chapter also addresses the mechanisms of positive and negative reinforcement and how these manifest in our interaction with digital technology, focusing on how the digital age has facilitated the attainment of rewards. Finally, the functional analysis of behavior and operant conditioning by Burrhus Frederic Skinner is discussed, illustrating how our behaviors are shaped by their consequences, a principle that is being extensively exploited by technology and digital services.