About this Research Topic

Background

The world in which we live today is drastically different from the one in which the human brain evolved. Technology, and more precisely, digitalization, makes our lives easier as compared to decades ago. However, the increased use of technology may have a lasting impact on our mental processes. If so, it seems imperative to examine how it affects our cognition. Of interest, these developments take place in the context of a rapidly aging society, and where many disciplines have struggled to address the interaction of technology with the aging process in terms of human development, cognition, social support and emotional skills.

Digitization can obviously lead to the deterioration of certain skills (e.g., impairments in our cognitive processes inherent to attention, memory, and delay of gratification) but it also leads to an improvement of other abilities (e.g., strategy development). Even if a few recent studies have found pertinent evidence of changes in cognitive patterns following a chronic exposure to media or digital devices, other research has remained inconclusive. Due to the moment in history we are living in, we face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address these issues. Thus, this Research Topic aims to examine the following questions:
- How does media multitasking affect our mental processes?
- What is the impact of digital devices on our cognitive processes (e.g., digital devices used for reading or GPS for spatial navigation)?
- What is the role of technology use in the aging process?
- How can we take advantage of the effects of digitalization?

This Research Topic aims to include theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that offer multidisciplinary perspectives on the challenges we face with the increasing use of technology and how can we benefit from them.

Keywords: Digitalization, cognition, ICT, technology, Human-Computer interaction

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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