WHAT IS DIGITAL WELLNESS?

Unit 3 - all of the topics taken from the exam review slides

Digital wellness

How tech can affect your mental, emotional, social, and cognitive health and how to use tech that positively impacts your life and productivity.

Constant connections = constant stimulation

Attention residue/fragmentation due to the constant jumping between messages, notifications, and apps. This causes the brain to have difficulty in remembering, focusing, and thinking clearly.

What is attention residue/fragmentation?

when part of your focus is stuck on the last thing looked at

Attention economy

Your attention that apps benefit from, as it can help them make profits

Digital “Stickness”?

infinite scrolling, autoplaying, and personalized feeds, designed to make the user never stop, which impacts the mind. It uses streaks, rewards, push notifications, and read messages to keep the user hooked on the app.

Skinner box

This is research on operant conditioning / intermittent reinforcements. Refreshing your feed is like pulling a slot machine lever, though getting likes, funny videos.

Dopamine loops:

Motivation and anticipation, not pleasure, since when something unexpected occurs, the concept of gaining a new reward in the form of entertainment.

How can algorithms shape identity?

Forms micro-identities (GymTok, BookTok, etc.), reinforces existing beliefs (confirmation biases), limits exploration of diverse views (filter bubbles), and can stereotype users based on the things listed above. reinforces

Dopamine reset

Low stimulation = restored sensitivity, high stimulation = more cravings

Algorithms and identity:

Algorithms show content that is based on your preferences gathered from likes, comments, and interactions with other content and people.