This study investigates how silent listening, the act of consuming digital content without visible interaction, shapes individual understanding in algorithmically mediated environments. Drawing on a qualitative dataset of 21 semi-structured interviews, this study explores how users describe their listening practices, how these shape cognition and emotion, and how they understand the ethical implications of their listening habits. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to surface recurring interpretive and affective patterns. Three key findings emerge: (1) silent listening is not passive but structured by platform dynamics that render listeners infrastructurally embedded; (2) understanding is shaped through ambient exposure and emotional attunement, leading to gradual, often unrecognized shifts in beliefs; and (3) ethical agency extends to attention, as silent engagement contributes to content visibility in ways users cannot fully control. Framed through cybernetic, sociocultural, and critical traditions of communication theory, the study reconceptualizes silent digital listening as an ethically and structurally meaningful form of participation. It invites reflection on how attention, rather than expression alone, configures digital publics, platform governance, and responsibility.
Sanna Ala-Kortesmaa (Sun,) studied this question.