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How susceptible is your mind to algorithmic influence? The new Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD) offers a practical way to discover your personal cognitive vulnerabilities and strengths in the digital landscape. This self-assessment tool provides insights that can help you navigate our increasingly AI-mediated world with greater autonomy.

Introducing the Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD)

Imagine having a fitness tracker—but for your mind. The CRD tool quantifies your Cognitive Resilience Level by evaluating key dimensions such as focused attention, emotional regulation, and your ability to process and filter digital information. Using an innovative formula, it provides you with a personalized Cognitive Resilience Score (CRS) that highlights both your strengths and areas where you can enhance your mental defenses.

You might ask: why is this important? In today’s hyper-connected world, awareness of how our digital surroundings function and influence us is crucial because these interactions directly affect our values, decision-making processes, and even our fundamental thought patterns—often without our conscious awareness.

The origin story

This project originated from my earlier post “The Digital Dance – Reclaiming Our Minds.” After exploring how technology shapes our thinking, I wondered: could we create a way to evaluate and track our individual cognitive resilience? With today’s powerful AI tools, developing such a framework proved more feasible than I initially imagined. I used both ChatGPT and Claude to create the first draft of what would become the “Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD)” framework. With that conceptual foundation, I leveraged Claude 3.7 Sonnet’s coding capabilities to build a fully functional HTML application.
And after couple of tweaks I can now present the Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD) – a self-assessment tool that helps you measure and strengthen your mind’s resistance to digital manipulation. Most importantly, it jumpstarts your awareness of your cognitive vulnerability to influences, pushed theories, biases, and subtle manipulations that permeate our digital environment.

What is the Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic?

The CRD is a comprehensive self-assessment framework designed to help you understand your unique psychological relationship with digital technology. Unlike simple screen time trackers or generic digital wellness advice, the CRD examines multiple dimensions of your cognitive interaction with the digital world:

      • How your attention responds to digital distractions
      • Your emotional reactions to social media and online content
      • Your information processing patterns when consuming digital media
      • Your specific vulnerability factors to algorithmic influence

By completing the assessment, you’ll receive a personalized Cognitive Resilience Score (CRS) that quantifies your overall mental immunity to digital manipulation, along with detailed insights into your specific strengths and vulnerabilities.

How does it work?

The assessment evaluates 20 distinct dimensions across four major components that determine your cognitive resilience:

    1. Cognitive Resilience (CR) – This component measures your ability to maintain clear thinking despite digital distractions. It examines factors like attention quality, cognitive load management, and resistance to thought fragmentation.
    2. Emotional Regulation (ER) – This component evaluates how well you manage emotions triggered by digital content, including your resistance to emotional contagion and recovery time after exposure to triggering content.
    3. Information Processing (IP) – This component assesses how you handle the flood of information in the digital environment, including verification behaviors, diversity of information sources, and resistance to confirmation bias.
    4. Vulnerability Factors (VS) – This component identifies specific attributes that might increase your susceptibility to manipulation, such as dependence on social validation, exposure to echo chambers, and need for cognitive closure.

The CRD also evaluates which brain system (reptilian, emotional, or rational) dominates your response in different digital contexts, providing crucial insights into when you might be most vulnerable to influence.

Upcoming future improvements 

As the first version of the CRD tool, this application perhaps marks the beginning of an evolving journey toward deeper insights into our cognitive resilience. I will gathering feedback and exploring innovative enhancements to refine the assessment, expand its diagnostic dimensions, and offer even more tailored recommendations over time. While you may notice areas that are still in development, rest assured that with future updates I will try to deliver a more robust and comprehensive tool for understanding and strengthening your mental defenses.

Ready to discover your digital defense level

Taking the Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic is simple:

    1. Complete the self-assessment questionnaire (takes approximately 15-20 minutes)
    2. Receive your personalized Cognitive Resilience Score and detailed analysis
    3. Review your tailored recommendations for enhancing digital resilience
    4. Implement the suggested strategies in your daily digital life
    5. Re-assess periodically to track your progress

The digital world isn’t going away, but you can develop the cognitive skills to navigate it on your own terms. The CRD gives you the insights and tools to strengthen your mental sovereignty in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

    Try it out now →

    Disclaimer

    Your Privacy is Our Priority: The Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD) operates entirely on your local device. No personal data is saved, stored, or transmitted to external servers during your assessment. Your responses and results remain completely private and are temporarily processed only for the duration of your session. Once you close your browser or navigate away, all information is automatically deleted. 
    The Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic (CRD) tool is intended for self-examination and personal awareness. It is NOT a substitute for professional mental health advice or clinical diagnosis. Users are encouraged to consult with a healthcare professional if they have concerns about their mental well-being.

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    Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic Tool

    Cognitive Resilience Diagnostic Tool (CRD)

    Measure your susceptibility or resistance to various forms of information manipulation, cognitive distortion, and emotional contagion in digital environments.

    Instructions

    This questionnaire is designed to help you reflect on how you handle distractions, emotions, and information when using digital media. No personal data is saved; it is solely for your own self-assessment.

    Read each scenario and question carefully. Use the 5-point rating scale to indicate how much you agree with each statement (or how frequently you experience the described behavior). There are no "right" or "wrong" answers—respond based on your honest self-perception.

    The assessment has 20 questions across four dimensions and will take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.

    Cognitive Resilience

    Your ability to stay focused, handle multiple information streams, and flexibly switch thinking modes (emotional, analytical, etc.) without feeling overwhelmed.

    1.
    Scenario: You're reading an important email while your phone keeps buzzing with social media notifications and there's background noise (e.g., music, people talking).
    How well can you remain focused on the email content despite these distractions?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    2.
    Scenario: You're trying to follow a news livestream while simultaneously responding to work chat messages and checking social media.
    How overwhelmed do you feel when handling multiple streams of information at once?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    3.
    Scenario: You come across a post that sparks a strong emotional reaction, but you also want to analyze it logically.
    How easily can you shift from an emotional to a more analytical mindset in this situation?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    4.
    Scenario: You see a breaking news headline that could be clickbait.
    How quickly do you engage critical thinking (e.g., fact-checking, questioning sources) to assess its credibility?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    5.
    Scenario: You're reading an online forum discussion and keep getting interrupted by pop-up ads or direct messages.
    How well do you maintain a coherent train of thought despite these frequent interruptions?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always

    Emotional Regulation

    Your awareness of and ability to manage emotional responses to digital content—especially when it is upsetting, polarizing, or highly charged.

    1.
    Scenario: You read an angry rant in the comment section of a social media post.
    How often do you find yourself adopting that anger or frustration after reading such comments?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    2.
    Scenario: A friend shares an emotional story about a controversial topic on their feed.
    How likely are you to experience an amplified emotional reaction beyond your usual response?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    3.
    Scenario: You come across a shocking headline while scrolling through your news feed.
    How aware are you of your own emotional responses (e.g., anxiety, anger, excitement) as you continue reading?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    4.
    Scenario: You see upsetting news about a global event that conflicts with your values.
    How quickly can you return to a balanced emotional state once you stop reading or take a break?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    5.
    Scenario: You need to decide whether to share or comment on a post that elicits a strong emotional response.
    How well do you balance your emotions and logical reasoning when deciding your next action?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always

    Information Processing

    How you seek out, verify, and interpret digital information, including willingness to consider multiple perspectives and filter out irrelevant details.

    1.
    Scenario: You want to learn more about a news story you just heard.
    How diverse are the sources (e.g., multiple news outlets, expert articles, fact-checking sites) you consult before forming an opinion?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    2.
    Scenario: You come across a surprising statistic on social media.
    How often do you verify that statistic with other reputable sources before accepting or sharing it?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    3.
    Scenario: You see an article that contradicts a long-held belief or perspective of yours.
    How willing are you to read it thoroughly and consider its viewpoint?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    4.
    Scenario: You're researching a new topic online but encounter a lot of unrelated content, ads, or tangential links.
    How easily can you filter out the irrelevant information to find what's truly important?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    5.
    Scenario: You're exploring a complex social or political issue that has many nuanced arguments.
    How well do you avoid seeing the issue in purely black-and-white terms?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always

    Vulnerability Factors

    Social and psychological tendencies that might influence how you form beliefs or share information in digital environments (e.g., seeking approval, echo chambers).

    1.
    Scenario: You share an opinion on social media, and it gets very few likes or comments.
    How important is external validation (e.g., likes, positive feedback) to how you feel about your opinion?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    2.
    Scenario: You frequently visit an online community or forum where most users share your perspective.
    How much time do you spend in such spaces versus exploring viewpoints that differ from yours?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    3.
    Scenario: You receive positive feedback (likes, shares, compliments) on your posts or comments.
    How strongly does this influence what or how you post in the future?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    4.
    Scenario: A well-known "authority" or expert posts a claim that supports your viewpoint.
    How likely are you to question the validity of their claim before accepting it?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always
    5.
    Scenario: You encounter a topic where information is incomplete or conflicting, and there is no clear answer.
    How comfortable are you with the ambiguity, rather than needing a definitive conclusion?
    1 Strongly Disagree / Never
    2 Disagree / Rarely
    3 Neutral / Sometimes
    4 Agree / Often
    5 Strongly Agree / Always

    Brain System Activation Assessment

    For each context, select which brain system tends to dominate your response:

    1.
    When consuming breaking news:
    Quick, instinctual reaction
    Reptilian Brain
    Feeling-based response
    Emotional Brain
    Analytical, measured approach
    Rational Brain
    2.
    During social media engagement:
    Quick, instinctual reaction
    Reptilian Brain
    Feeling-based response
    Emotional Brain
    Analytical, measured approach
    Rational Brain
    3.
    When consuming political information:
    Quick, instinctual reaction
    Reptilian Brain
    Feeling-based response
    Emotional Brain
    Analytical, measured approach
    Rational Brain
    4.
    When receiving personal criticism:
    Quick, instinctual reaction
    Reptilian Brain
    Feeling-based response
    Emotional Brain
    Analytical, measured approach
    Rational Brain
    5.
    When making financial decisions:
    Quick, instinctual reaction
    Reptilian Brain
    Feeling-based response
    Emotional Brain
    Analytical, measured approach
    Rational Brain
    0

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