A General-Purpose IT Intervention to Improve Human Decision Making, Strengthen Passwords, and Reduce Receptivity to Misinformation

Although latency is a common feature of digital systems, its effects on user performance remain poorly understood. Prior studies report contradictory findings: some show that latency impairs decision making, others find no effect, and a few suggest potential benefits. This paper clarifies these inconsistencies through two sets of empirical studies. We demonstrate that latency can improve decision accuracy, but only under a specific boundary condition: task-relevant information must be present at the time of the latency. When this condition is met, latency acts as a cognitive prompt, encouraging users to shift from intuitive, fast decision making to more reflective, deliberative reasoning. In contrast, when latency occurs in the absence of relevant content, performance declines, consistent with cognitive disengagement and mind wandering. These findings reconcile mixed results in the information systems literature and offer actionable implications for system design. Specifically, we show that latency is not inherently harmful and may, in certain contexts, be used intentionally to scaffold deeper cognitive processing. This work reframes latency not as a nuisance to eliminate, but as a design variable that—when well timed—can support better user outcomes in high-stakes or cognitively demanding tasks.

History: Jason Thatcher, Senior Editor; Paul Lowry, Associate Editor.