W15.1 Introduction to Sociology/Technology, the Internet, and Virtual Worlds

1. Summarization
    The impact of technology, including mobile phones, social networks and games, on various aspects of social life has increased massively. Mobile phones have brought about changes in society and created new social norms. Social networks have benefits, such as maintaining connections, but also raise concerns about privacy and time management. While some studies suggest a link between violent games and aggression, the overall impact is to be found minimal. Games can also have benefits. Like improving visual attention. However, gaming too much can be associated negatively, including addiction and problems in behaviour.

2. What was interesting/what did you learn?
    This article confirms some thoughts I already had regarding social media in particular. To be very blunt and general. There has been a big increase in the usage as well as the impact of social media on our society. For persons, this can have health issues. For society, it means a fastened world with data, which can be more effective, but also overloading.

3. Discussion points
    The digital world has grown so fast in the last decade and continues on growing. I think we have seen many advantages from it. However, I believe we might not have the right approach to deal with the steep expansion of it. Which leads to issues. Those issues are big since our dependency on the digital world has increased in parallel with its general growth. Are we in over our heads? Is it just a temporal phase, where we need to adjust? Or isn't it that bad?

Jasper Toonen - 16 June 2023
Introduction to Information Sociology

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