I wonder how the internet affects our emotions and feelings, whether it's messing with our brains.
The simplest example that I always think of is parallel conversation. Especially in my late teens I used to spend long hours online chatting with many people at the same time. I'd be chatting about something funny with a friend at the same time I'd be chatting about some sad event with another friend at the same time I'd be chatting with someone I'm trying to get a date with at the same time I'd be trying to get rid of someone who can't stop bugging me.
This multi-tasking of emotions is something that communication over the internet brought with it and surely affects the way we react emotionally to situations. In the pre-internet age we would only have one conversation at a time, and between one conversation and the next you would usually have a gap in time, especially if the conversations were unrelated.
On the net, you might be laughing your head off at a joke while crying at the news of the loss of a loved one. Now I am no psychologist or have no such qualifications, but I would think that this multi-tasking of emotions might have diluted our feelings and changed the way our brain reacts to situations. Is there any research about this? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think or if you have any links to studies about the matter.
The simplest example that I always think of is parallel conversation. Especially in my late teens I used to spend long hours online chatting with many people at the same time. I'd be chatting about something funny with a friend at the same time I'd be chatting about some sad event with another friend at the same time I'd be chatting with someone I'm trying to get a date with at the same time I'd be trying to get rid of someone who can't stop bugging me.
This multi-tasking of emotions is something that communication over the internet brought with it and surely affects the way we react emotionally to situations. In the pre-internet age we would only have one conversation at a time, and between one conversation and the next you would usually have a gap in time, especially if the conversations were unrelated.
On the net, you might be laughing your head off at a joke while crying at the news of the loss of a loved one. Now I am no psychologist or have no such qualifications, but I would think that this multi-tasking of emotions might have diluted our feelings and changed the way our brain reacts to situations. Is there any research about this? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think or if you have any links to studies about the matter.
The Spend One Million Dollars experiment looks at the interaction of people with technology and money.
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