This assignment started off by watching Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, titled “Internet Addiction”. Following this, we had to imagine that referring to Psych 532, one of our friends asked us “Isn’t that course all about Internet addiction and other negative effects of the Internet?”. Finally, we had to make a discussion board post in which we answered this question, including at least 4 points from the lecture video.
The lecture video for this assignment was fairly short and most of the main points were included in my discussion board post, so I will include this below so you can see what the video taught me.
If a friend asked me, “Isn’t that course all about Internet addiction and other negative effects of the Internet?”, I would respond with a resounding “No”.
Professor Gernsbacher described in her lecture video that we have studied how the internet impacts “learning, memory, attention, perception, education, development, aging, social interaction, personality, emotions, motivation, decision making, judgment, and more”. This point from the video shoots down the claim that this course would just be about internet addiction, or a couple topics related to that, and displays that the course has explored an incredible amount of topics related to the effects of the internet.
The second point from the video builds off the first point, and it is that the course focuses both on positive and negative effects of the internet. Professor Gernsbacher reinforces that it is important to mention that there are some negative effects, such as cyberbullying, cheating, and negative emotional contagion that have been covered. However, we have covered numerous positive effects, and those have definitely outweighed the negative effects we have gone over.
Thirdly, she mentions that there is “considerable debate about whether internet addiction is even real, meaning whether it’s really an addiction”. So, this assignment is talking about possibility of internet addiction, but it would be hard to structure a course around internet addiction when it may not truly be an addiction! She discussed that many previous technologies have been feared, which lead to worries about addiction to each technology, and those fears and worries have faded over time, which could happen with the internet too.
A fourth point is that even if some additions are related to the internet, the internet may just be the medium, rather than the actual addiction. Professor Gernsbacher described that people may be addicted to internet-based gaming, gambling, pornography, or shopping, but that these individuals were likely addicted to the non-internet forms of these activities beforehand.
So, to the friend who is asking, these are just four points to emphasize that this course is not all about Internet addiction and other negative effects of the Internet. Although those play a role in the course, it is merely part of it, not the whole!
Reflecting on this assignment, the first thing that stuck out to me was that it was pretty quick and had a very short list of actions to complete. I appreciated this because it is the first assignment of the unit, and it is one of the last units. However, just because it was short does not mean I did not learn anything or that it was not valuable. I definitely learned from the video and the points it made.
I thought the video made some excellent points. For one thing, it included some review by listing some of the topics we have went through previously in the course. For example, it listed that we discussed learning memory, attention, etc. Another review aspect was the part that discussed how humans have always feared new technologies. Seeing similar themes from the beginning to the end of the course is pretty cool, allowing me to solidify them and my brain and validate that they are strong points!
I also liked how the video chose to question if internet addiction is even real, and then categorize it between different forms of internet addiction such as the ones mentioned earlier in this post. I had not really thought about this before, so I was glad that it alluded to these points. I agree that if someone is addicted to something like online gambling, it is likely that they were addicted to offline gambling first.
One last little thing is that I think it is cool when our discussion board posts aren’t just labeled as a post, but as a response to a question from someone we know. This makes it more personal, and allows me to think about what I would say if one of my friends actually asked me a question like this offline!
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