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To what extent is technology having a negative effect on cognitive…
To what extent is technology having a negative effect on cognitive processes?
Introduction
There is much research on the topic of cognitive processes being negatively affected by technology.
Many of our daily cognitive processes are impacted in some way or another by the use of technology. Some of them are negative.
For example, instead of exercising memory for the grocery items, one might feel more inclined to go for a digital list that does all the remembering for them.
Co-comparison
Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)
With significant usage of social media, people have a tendency toward developing what is called a negative cognitive bias, which means that they are more likely to self-judge harshly and see themselves more negatively than others in the social media.
This means that, so some significant degree, technology allows for the development of negative cognitive bias, which is a negative impact on cognitive processes that affects moods and emotions negatively.
Upward comparisons
People are more motivated to showcase a refined version of their lives on the internet, meaning that those that use technology to access social media will likely find themselves comparing with what only appears to be upward and superior to them.
This means that, to a very relevant degree, technology can affect cognition, especially when it comes to the cognitive processes that are used for self-judgment and appraisal.
Availability heuristic (Chou and Edge, 2014)
While using technology to access social media, people tend to remember more the things that are the most different to their experience, as well as those things that are the most positive, and, likely, out of touch with their current state.
This results in the fact that technology is having, to some significant degree, negative impacts on cognition, since social media tends to lead toward making people remember only the good parts about other people's lives while comparing to a much more realistic version of their own lives, which includes a lot more of the struggles and hardships.
Memory
Storm et al (2016)
Reached the conclusion that the fact that the internet has a lot of information makes people more likely to rely on it rather than their own memory for specific data. This is also known as transaction memory store, which is what the internet has become nowadays, a repository of information that people actively rely on in place of their own memories.
Confirmation bias
Modern-day algorithms and social media work in a way that increases confirmation bias, given the fact that content is served to us in such a way that the information that supports our existent ideologies are prioritized.