Towards Homo Digitalis: Important Research Issues for Psychology and the Neurosciences at the Dawn of the Internet of Things and the Digital Society

Abstract

Abstract:The present article gives an overview on central challenges humans face at the dawn of complex digital societies and the Internet of Things (IoT), i.e., a world completely connected to the Internet. Among the many challenges to be handled in digital societies is a growing fragmented life style leading to loss of productivity as well as moments for self-reflection. In all this, it is of tremendous importance to understand the impact of digital worlds on our brains and psyches and to reveal possible unintended side-effects of technology use. Does human nature change due to constant interactions with virtual realities? In this context, we also face the challenge to design digital worlds according to our mammalian-emotional heritage deeply anchored in subcortical areas of the human brain. Here, we refer to emotional needs as carved out by Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory and how they can or cannot be fulfilled in digital worlds. Aside from a review of several key studies dealing with the raised challenges, some first solutions to successfully meet the mentioned problems are provided to achieve sustainable and healthy digital worlds, with whom humans can interact carefree on a daily basis.

Unintended Side Effects of the Digital Transition: European Scientists’ Messages from a Proposition-Based Expert Round Table

“…If the digital environment does not meet the primal emotional needs (see A.4.4) human health and well-being may be endangered. Addiction, epigenetic and other measurable biophysical effects may result as unseens [4,59]. Interdisciplinary research and monitoring on health impacts of e-sports [60] seem to be necessary.…”

“…For instance, some politicians switch from personal, empathy, mutual trust building-and partnership-based verbal (e.g., telephone-based) interaction or physical interaction to twitter short notice. The personal relationships (see Appendix A.4; [59]) resulting from a virtually shaped interaction factually differs from those when interaction with the human personal.…”

“…For instance, some politicians switch from personal, empathy, mutual trust building-and partnership-based verbal (e.g., telephone-based) interaction or physical interaction to twitter short notice. The personal relationships (see Appendix A.4;[59]) resulting from a virtually shaped interaction factually differs from those when interaction with the human personal.There is an evolutionary new form (e.g., two-dimensional screen-based pictures vs. a complex, co-evolutionary developing environment such as a complex tropical forest), density, artificial, and increasingly virtual (and thus evolutionary unknown) information. We may take from anthropology and human history that human is a highly adaptive species that may adapt to physically and socially highly different environments.…”

Homo Interneticus—The Sociological Reality of Mobile Online Being

“…The main theme of this film was how the web may be distracting and overloading our brains. Another more widely used term to capture this reality is Homo Digitalis (HD) [10,11]. Even though these are almost synonymous, HI can be considered as somehow comprehending HD.…”

Concept, Possibilities and Pilot-Testing of a New Smartphone Application for the Social and Life Sciences to Study Human Behavior Including Validation Data from Personality Psychology

“…Scientists around the globe currently discuss if a paradigm shift is happening in the social and life sciences. With the rapid distribution of the World Wide Web since the early 1990s, and the advent of the iPhone in 2007, dramatic changes have occurred in societies around the globe [1]. Digital technologies have drastically changed how humans communicate (faster and at lower costs via long distance), find their way in unknown territory, and how they entertain themselves.…”