How technology changes everything (and nothing) in psychology: 2008 annual report of the APA Policy and Planning Board.

Abstract

was the liaison for the Board of Directors. APA Bylaws Article XI.7 requires that the Policy and Planning Board report annually by publication to the membership and review the structure and function of the Association as a whole every fifth year (APA, 2008).It seems that every day, in some conversation or another, the talk turns to technology. It can be about the delight taken in a well-designed website or the ease of accessing data when one needs it; it can be a 50-somethingyear-old complaining that the BlackBerry needs to be redesigned for newly arthritic baby boomer fingers; it may be a parent boasting about a young child's mastery of electronic equipment or complaining about a teenager's obsession with instant messaging, text messaging, or Facebook. The conversation might also involve a psychologist voicing concerns about the lack of confidentiality of electronic health records or complaining about being inundated with e-mails from colleagues, patients, and listservs.Although the pleasures and frustrations of technology are now widely recognized in personal life, in the classroom, and in the boardroom, technology's impact on social and organizational life is often not fully appreciated. Putnam (2000), in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, however, has alerted us to the significant ways in which technology is shaping social life. In this article, we take a more focused view by exploring the fundamental implications-positive and negative, immediate and long term-that technology has for the science and practice of psychology and, more directly, for the APA.

Save the best for last I: Young adults demonstrate negative time preference—A replication and extension.

“…Contemporary wisdom (Gleick, 2000) seems to suggest that with technological advances, aspects of our society have, in a sense, sped up. Along with the internet, which became popularized in the early-to-mid 1990s with the invention of the world-wide web (Leiner et al, 2009), came substantive advances that have reduced the delay to many things like information, music, movies, mail, deliveries of online shopping, and communication, and we have therefore become more sensitive to delays or more impatient (American Psychological Association Policy & Planning Board, 2009). This sensitivity to delays in sequence outcomes is an area suitable for further direct and systematic replication.…”

Use of technology for note taking and therapeutic alliance.

“…Technology has opened new possibilities that could not have been imagined only a few years ago, and if history is our guide then we can expect to continue to expand the use of technology in life and the practice of professional psychology. It has forever changed our “experience, interaction, education, research, and practice” (APA Policy & Planning Board, 2009, p. 461). Yet there are core dimensions of psychological practice established long before computers and iPads became a mainstay of culture, one of which is the importance of psychotherapeutic alliance.…”