Discuss the positive and negative influence of technology on emotion and cognition

Konrath, O'Brien and Hsing (2010)

Carrier et al. (2015)

While empathy has been demonstrated to have a negative influence on empathy, some technological uses have been shown to increase empathy

Aim: to examine changes in US college students empathy scores over time

Procedure: interpersonal reactivity index (IRI) was used to measure empathy. IRI is a personality scale which measures both emotional and cognitive components of empathy

Results: more recent generations of college students progressively reported lower empathy and perspective taking scores.
the most dramatic changes happened between 2000-09, the time when cell phones and major social media sites became a major function of daily life

Conclusion: researchers point out the fact that the decline in empathy coincides with the rise of cell phones and social media. “younger people more frequently remove themselves from deep interpersonal social situations and become immersed in isolated online environments"

Aim: to investigate the relationship between digital activities, virtual empathy and real-world empathy

Procedure: researchers used an anonymous online questionnaire which collected information on daily media usage and empathy scores. both emotional and cognitive components of empathy were measured

Results: engaging in online activities which led to real world face-to-face interactions demonstrated higher real-life empathy scores- such activities included social networking sites, search engines, email, etc. conversely, video games resulted in lower scores of empathy

Conclusion: when investigating the relationship between technology and empathy, it is important to consider the online activity which is being used. some activities may increase empathy whereas others may decrease it

Evaluation

Evaluation

Limitation: sample is all young people

Strength: strong testing component to evaluate both facets of empathy

Strength: accounts for both cognitive and emotional aspects of empathy

Limitation: unable to determine causation

Link: some digital activities (i.e., those that anticipate face-to-face interaction) have been demonstrated to promote real-world empathy

Link: more and more use of technology in everyday life has resulted in a decline in empathy

These two studies offer conflicting opinions on the influence if technology on empathy. One argues that it has shown a strict decline where as the other proposes that it enhances empathy. However, both do propose that some digital activity decreases empathy and thus this should be taken into account when showing the influence of emotion on cognition.