Cognition and Digital Technology: Assumptions Versus Reality

Cognition and Development – Cognition and Digital Technology

In this course, Dr Dean Burnett (Cardiff University) explores the relationship between cognition and digital technology. In the first lecture, we think about how the assumptions about the relationship between cognition and digital technology compare to reality. In the second lecture, we think about what scientific research has shown regarding the impacts of digital technology on cognition. Next, we think about both the good and the bad impacts that digital technology can have on cognition. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about some research methods used to study the relationships between digital technology and cognition. Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Cognition and Digital Technology: Assumptions Versus Reality

In this lecture, we think about some key assumptions and their reality regarding the relationship between cognition and digital technology, focusing in particular on: (i) the mainstream assumption that digital technology has a detrimental effect on cognition and cognitive development; (ii) a valid aspect of that view being that technology enables young people to access content which they are not necessarily cognitively mature enough to be ready for; (iii) ‘TikTok ticks’, whereby people who watch TikTok influencers with Tourette’s Syndrome develop similar symptoms; (iv) a quote from Plato, which highlights that the rejection of new technology for fear of it corrupting cognition is nothing new in society; (v) the example of video games being so popular demonstrating, in a modern context, that concern about the effect of digital technology on cognition doesn’t translate into effective action against it; (vi) the unique societal situation currently present today, whereby the digital age means that living together now are generations of ‘digital immigrants’ and generations of ‘digital natives’, with the former raising the latter; (vii) the parent-child conflicts which can arise from the ‘digital immigrant’-‘digital native’ dynamic.