Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 33 (2012) 732 –000–000 736 Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia PSIWORLD 2011 Digital era psychology – studies on cognitive changes Cristian Vasilea* a Petroleum Gas University of Ploiesti, 39 Bucuresti Blvd, Ploiesti, 100680, Romania Abstract In recent decades there was an increasing impact of the technological development, felt most strongly in the area of information and communication technology (ICT) ICT have become present in many areas of activity and in increasingly more households, transforming our world in the so-called Information Society The study focuses on the possible consequences of the use of digital technologies (more specific: internet activities, games etc.) on cognitive processes Our approach evaluates the impact of frequent use of “internet based activities” on the cognitive functions The paper seeks also possible implications of cognitive changes in the whole personality ©©2012 peer-reviewunder underresponsibility responsibilityofofPSIWORLD PSIWORLD2011 2011Published Publishedby byElsevier ElsevierB.V Ltd.Selection Selectionand/or and peer-review 2011 Keywords: ICT; digital; psychology; cognition Introduction According to different studies, there is an increasing number of children and, especially, adolescents using computer-based activities for socializing, gaming, e-mail, web-sites visiting etc (Johnson, 2006) Moreover the learning process is based increasingly more on the online activities, such as teacher – students platforms interaction, online tasks, multimedia usage for teaching in classroom and so on In addition the modern technology brought us different digital gadgets which surround all of us: iPhones, iPods, iVideos – all of them connected to Internet or to different Internet-based networks This way almost all information is processed and transmitted by IT means Teenagers and young people increasingly rarer read a newspaper Traditional libraries have few customers, and e-books are already used widely in most developed countries To further facilitate "reading" audio-books were made available to "readers" * Corresponding author E-mail address: clinical_psycho@yahoo.com 1877-0428 © 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of PSIWORLD2011 doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.01.218 Cristian Vasile/ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 Cristian Vasile / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 33 (2012) 732 – 736 All these major changes took place in a very short period in human history During one generation mankind started from the invention of communication networks within companies, to reach the internet with all its applications used by so many people The information and communication technology (ICT) have become present in many areas of activity and in increasingly more households, transforming our world in the so-called Information Society (Castells, 2000) Nowadays we cannot ignore the changes in people’s lives brought by the Internet and its accessories This led to the breakdown of the geographical barriers, and the development of real-time, instantaneously, of certain activities that are based on cognitive functions (DiMaggio et al., 2001) Internet-based activities Almost all the digital activities are related somehow to internet For instance, one of the most used commercial activities is the online shopping Patwardhan and Yang (2003) show that in a survey made in 2001 in U.S the results indicates that 48.2% of all Americans over 18 years old (100.2 million persons) used online shopping and have bought different products Studies show that digital media was the most popular media in 2010 61% of users used the internet daily compared to only 54% watching TV, 36% listening to the radio and 32% reading newspapers There are different statistics showing how often the internet is used daily, such as the graphs below: Figure1 Internet daily usage (Weg, 2011) 733 734 Cristian Vasile / Procedia - Social Behavioral Sciences 33 (2012) 732 – 736 Cristian Vasile/ Procedia - Social and and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 Figure Social network users in Europe (http://pewinternet.tumblr.com/post/7497313287/europe-social-media-map) We have to underline that there is an inverse correlation between the age of the internet users and the number of the users: while the number of users increase, their age decreases About 25% of 5-year-old children use the internet The number rises to over 50% by age and to at least 75% by ages 15-17’ (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003) All these internet-based activities have a major impact on cognitive functions, modifying or adjusting the human cognition to a digital world We use the “cognition” term encompassing fundamental mental processes: perception, memory, language, thinking (with problem solving processes and comprehension), attention Cognitive development includes changes or adjustments in cognition over time After the computer invention we started to use the computer function in order to understand (and explain) better the human mind functions Cognitive adjustments Emphasized using of the computer in the last decades appears to have lead to different changes in PC operators’ cognitive functioning Furthermore, some studies have been focused on cognitive changes that have emerged among children and adolescents using frequently the computer (internet, chat etc.) Tardieu and Gyselinck (2003) discuss (on empirical evidence) about working memory constraints and about the need to consider the limitations of cognitive resources available to a user of a multimedia system (Oostendorp, 2003) Jtirrlelti and Htikkinen develop a socio-cognitive model for analyzing Web-based interaction (id.) Cristian / Procedia – 736 CristianVasile Vasile/ Procedia- Social - Socialand andBehavioral BehavioralSciences Sciences3300(2012) (2011)732 000–000 The working memory (WM) is specialized on different sensory organs This way we can discuss about visual WM or auditory WM As we know, the human being is mainly visual In addition we can observe that the modern multimedia and internet-based activities are mainly visual In this specific case we will discuss about the visual WM The visual clutter data/information could lead to an overload of the visual WM and to a decrease of the subject’s efficiency and cognitive performance Studies conducted in different environments indicates that the overload issue appear when the information is transmitted only or mainly through a visual way Tardieu and Gyselinck (2003) presents few studies on WM in the virtual environment We reproduce below one of these studies: “Using a short computer-generated animation depicting the process of lightning formation or a car’s braking system, Mayer and Moreno (1998) examined how students integrate animation with a text presented visually or auditorily Students viewed the animation along with the corresponding text presented visually (same-modality presentation) or they viewed the animation along with the concurrent narration presented auditorily (different-modality presentation) Three measures of performance were considered: a memory test of the relevant steps in the process described, a matching test between the names for elements and those placed in an illustration, and a transfer test requiring the subject to apply his or her learning to new situations Students performed better on these tests when the animation was accompanied by the text presented in an auditory rather than in a visual modality The authors interpreted this to indicate that visual working memory is overloaded when materials are presented in the same modality, whereas cross-modal presentation of the information in effect reduces the processing overload Because learners are not able to hold the corresponding pictorial and verbal representations in working memory at the same time, they have difficulties building connections between representations presented in the same modality.” Another study reproduced in the table below (Johnson, 2011) show a multiple function analysis, among the cognition is also analyzed in terms of gender 735 736 Cristian Vasile/ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 Cristian Vasile / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 33 (2012) 732 – 736 Discussion It is generally considered as the digital era and especially the internet-based activities negatively affect children and adolescents There are even some opinions that IT technology is one of the factors underlying exponential growth of certain disorders, such as ADHD Yet increasingly more results suggest that adaptive cognitive changes occur from the intensive use of digital technology and these changes don’t influence in a negative manner the human functioning within the modern society Yet there are several studies indicating that the increasing usage of the internet-based activities lead to the reduction of some specific skills from pre-digital human period Studies indicate also that the human cognition is changing: we are adapting to new ways of information processing However the visual path is used in an excessive way in the digital world and this could lead to a decrease of the cognitive performance due to overload Personality goes also through important changes Besides the cognitive adjustments, the social identity is changing due to new ways of socializing Some behaviors adapt to the virtual world (e.g cyber bullying) The emotional area is also adapting to a new world References Castells, M (2000) The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol I MA, Cambridge, UK:Blackwell DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W R and Robinson, J P (2001) Social Implications of the Internet Annual Review of Sociology Vol 27: 307-336 Johnson, G (2006) Internet Use and Cognitive Development: a theoretical framework E-Learning and Digital Media, 3(4), 565573 Johnson, G.M (2011) Internet Activities and developmental Predictors: Gender Differences Among Digital Natives Journal of interactive Online Learning, Vol 10, no 2, 64-76 National Center for Educational Statistics (2003) Computer and Internet Use by Children and Adolescents in 2001:statistical analysis report Jessup: US Department of Education Patwardhan, P., Yang J (2003) Internet dependency relations and online consumer behavior: a media system dependency theory perspective on why people shop, chat, and read news online Journal of Interactive Advertising Vol 3, no.2, 57-69 Sprenger, M (2010) Brain-based teaching in the digital age Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD Tardieu, H., Gyselinck, V (2003) Working memory Constraints in the Integration and Comprehension of Information in a Multimedia Context In Cognition in a digital world (Ed van Oostendorp) New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers van Oostendorp, H (ed.) (2003) Cognition in a digital world New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers Weg, S (2011) Three important facts about global Social Media and Internet usage http://ynovation.blogspot.com/2011/07/threeimportant-facts-about-global.html ... appears to have lead to different changes in PC operators’ cognitive functioning Furthermore, some studies have been focused on cognitive changes that have emerged among children and adolescents using... Students viewed the animation along with the corresponding text presented visually (same-modality presentation) or they viewed the animation along with the concurrent narration presented auditorily... the information is transmitted only or mainly through a visual way Tardieu and Gyselinck (2003) presents few studies on WM in the virtual environment We reproduce below one of these studies: “Using