Digital media, the developing brain and the interpretive plasticity of neuroplasticity

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2394927
AutoresSuparna Choudhury (McGill University, autor de correspondencia), Kelly A Mckinney (John Abbot College), Kelly Mckinney (John Abbott College)
Año2013
Volumen50
Número2
Páginas192-215
Fecha de publicación2013-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTranscultural Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-4615 • E-ISSN: 1461-7471
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363461512474623
PMID23599391
OpenAlexW2149916220
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas62

The use and misuse of digital technologies among adolescents has been the focus of fiery debates among parents, educators, policy-makers and in the media. Recently, these debates have become shaped by emerging data from cognitive neuroscience on the development of the adolescent brain and cognition. "Neuroplasticity" has functioned as a powerful metaphor in arguments both for and against the pervasiveness of digital media cultures that increasingly characterize teenage life. In this paper, we propose that the debates concerning adolescents are the meeting point of two major social anxieties both of which are characterized by the threat of "abnormal" (social) behaviour: existing moral panics about adolescent behaviour in general and the growing alarm about intense, addictive, and widespread media consumption in modern societies. Neuroscience supports these fears but the same kinds of evidence are used to challenge these fears and reframe them in positive terms. Here, we analyze discourses about digital media, the Internet, and the adolescent brain in the scientific and lay literature. We argue that while the evidential basis is thin and ambiguous, it has immense social influence. We conclude by suggesting how we might move beyond the poles of neuro-alarmism and neuro-enthusiasm. By analyzing the neurological adolescent in the digital age as a socially extended mind, firstly, in the sense that adolescent cognition is distributed across the brain, body, and digital media tools and secondly, by viewing adolescent cognition as enabled and transformed by the institution of neuroscience, we aim to displace the normative terms of current debates

Addiction · Cognition · Cognitive reframing · Cognitive science · Digital media · Epistemology · Neuroethics · Normative · Political science · Social media · Child Development and Digital Technology · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Psychology