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Sludge Theory is alive, well and thriving everywhere!
All of us have experienced sludge, especially via the World Wide Web. Let’s examine the theory briefly;
The two defining characteristics of a sludge (Thaler, 2018) are “friction and bad intentions” (Goldhill, 2019). While Richard Thaler strongly advocates nudging for good by making desirable behaviour easier, a sludge does the opposite: It makes a process more difficult in order to arrive at an outcome that is not in the best interest of the sludged. Examples of sludges include product rebates that require difficult procedures, subscription cancellations that can only be done with a phone call and complicated or long government student aid application forms.
Even when a sludge is associated with a beneficial behaviour (as in student aid, voter registrations or driver’s licenses, for example), costs can be excessive. These costs may be a difficulty in acquiring information, unnecessary amounts of time spent, or psychological detriments, such as frustration (Sunstein, 2020).
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Let’s look at an example to explain sludge at work. If you want to prevent targeting via the wholesale tracking cookie, it’s very difficult to stop it. Just go onto any news website (I no longer do), and the first thing you will be presented with is a massive cookie banner to accept. I’m guessing that…
