Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T09:01:46.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Communication Technologies and Social Transformation: Their Impact on Human Development

from Part III - Social, Legal, and Technological Change: Impact on Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

By
Patricia M. Greenfield
Edited by
Ross D. Parke  and
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Ross D. Parke
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Get access

Summary

The focus is on developmental effects of communication technologies from print literacy to Internet and smart phones. Longitudinal and cross-sectional comparison sheds light on historical shifts and cross-cultural data. Because there is no evidence that basic media effects are country or ethnicity specific, evidence from multiple countries shows how the historical march of media have affected values, learning environments, and individual development. Cross-cultural evidence suggests that this is indeed a portrait of globalized social change and its implications for human development around the world. Nonetheless, I provide an example of how the global culture engendered by new communications technologies is expressed. Using a theory of social change and human development as a framework I explore developmental implications - social, cognitive, and neural - of the march of media through historical time and across geographical space. Eschewing methodocentrism, I draw on studies employing a variety of methods: content analysis, focus group, survey, field experiment, lab experiment, and fMRI experiment. While before-after comparisons are precious but rare, there are many other research designs that allow us to infer effects of the historical introduction and expansion of a particular communication technology.

Keywords

internettelevisionsocial changechildren and technologyglobal communication
Type
Chapter
Information
Children in Changing Worlds
Sociocultural and Temporal Perspectives
 , pp. 235 - 274
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, C. A. & Dill, K. E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 772–790.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, C. A., Ihori, N., Bushman, B. J., Rothstein, H. R., Shibuya, A., Swing, E. L., Sakamoto, A., & Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behaviour in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 151–173.Google Scholar
Anderson, C. A., Suzuki, K., Swing, E. L., Groves, C. L., Gentile, D. A., Prot, S., … Petrescu, P. (2017). Media violence and other aggression risk factors in seven nations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 986–998.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bailyn, L. (1959). Mass media and children: A study of exposure habits and cognitive effects. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 73, 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
boyd, d. (2007). Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society Research Publication Series.Google Scholar
Boz, N., Uhls, Y. T. & Greenfield, P. M. (2016). Cross-cultural comparison of adolescents’ online self-presentation strategies: Turkey and the United States. Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, 6, 1–16.Google Scholar
Bushman, B. & Huesman, L. R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In Singer, D. G. & Singer, J. L. (Eds.), Handbook of Children and the Media (pp. 223–254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Calvert, S. L. & Tan, S.-L. (1994). Impact of virtual reality on young adults’ physiological arousal and aggressive thoughts: Interaction versus observation. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 125–139.Google Scholar
Cantor, J., Mares, M.-L., & Hyde, J. S. (2003). Autobiographical memories of exposure to sexual media content, Media Psychology, 5, 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chou, H. G. & Edge, N. (2012). “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: The impact of Facebook on perception of others’ lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15, 117–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Common Sense Media (2017). The Common Sense Census: Media use by kids age zero to eight. Retrieved from www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-age-zero-to-eight-2017, July 7, 2018.Google Scholar
D’Angelo, J. D. & Toma, C. L. (2017). There are plenty of fish in the sea: The effects of choice overload and reversibility on online daters’ satisfaction with partner choice. Media Psychology, 20, 1–27.Google Scholar
Dehaene, S., Pegado, F., Braga, L. W., Ventura, P., Filho, G. N., Jobert, A., … Cohen, L. (2010). How learning to read changes the cortical networks for vision and language. Science, 330, 1359–1364.Google Scholar
Dilley, J. (2017). The most popular video games in the world. Retrieved July 18, 2018 from www.cabletv.com/blog/popular-video-games-world-map/Google Scholar
Drabman, R. S. & Thomas, M. H. (1974). Does media violence increase children’s toleration of real-life aggression? Developmental Psychology, 10, 418–421.Google Scholar
Flichy, P. (2002). New media history. In Lievrouw, L. & Livingstone, S. (Eds.), Handbook of New Media: Social shaping and consequences of ICTs (pp. 136–150). London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, L. K. & Stein, A. H. (1973). Aggressive and prosocial television programs and the natural behavior or preschool children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38, 1–63.Google Scholar
Gadberry, S. (1980). Effects of restricting first graders’ TV-viewing on leisure time use, IQ change, and cognitive style. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 1, 45–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, C., Rivera, N., & Greenfield, P. M. (2015). The decline of cooperation, the rise of competition: Developmental effects of long-term social change in Mexico. International Journal of Psychology, 50, 6–11.Google Scholar
Gardner, H. & Davis, K. (2013). The App Generation: How today’s youth navigate identity, intimacy, and imagination in a digital world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Yukawa, S., Ihori, N., Saleem, M., Ming, L. K., Shibuya, A., Liau, A. K., Khoo, A., Bushman, B. J., Huesmann, L. R., & Sakamoto, A. (2009). The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 752–763.Google Scholar
George, M. J., Russell, M. A., Piontak, J. R., & Odgers, C. J. (2018). Concurrent and subsequent associations between daily digital technology use and high-risk adolescents’ mental health symptoms. Child Development, 89, 78–88.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (1984/2014). Mind and Media: The effects of television, video games, and computers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reprinted in 2014 as 30th Anniversary Classic Edition by Psychology Press, New York.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (1993). Representational competence in shared symbol systems: Electronic media from radio to video games. In Cocking, R. R. & Renninger, K. A. (Eds.), The Development and Meaning of Psychological Distance (pp. 161–183). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (2009a). Linking social change and developmental change: Shifting pathways of human development. Developmental Psychology, 45, 401–418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenfield, P. M. (2009b). Technology and informal education: What is taught, what is learned. Science, 323, 69–71.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (2013). The changing psychology of culture from 1800 through 2000. Psychological Science, 24, 1722–1731.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenfield, P. M. (2016). Social change, cultural evolution, and human development. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 84–92.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (2018a). Studying social change, culture, and human development: A theoretical framework and methodological guidelines. Developmental Review.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (2018b, March). Violent video games and assault weapons can turn into a lethal combination. Miami Herald. www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article205433529.htmlGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, P. M., Camaioni, L., Ercolani, P., Weiss, L., Lauber, B., & Perucchini, P. (1994). Cognitive socialization by computer games in two cultures: Inductive discovery or mastery of an iconic code? Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 59–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, P. M., Evers, N. F. G., & Dembo, J. (2017). What types of photographs do teenagers “like”? International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, 7(3).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. & Juvonen, J. (1999). A developmental look at Columbine. APA Monitor, July/August.Google Scholar
Hansen, N., Koudenburg, N., Hiersemann, R., Tellegen, P. J., Kocsev, M., & Postmes, T. (2012). Laptop usage affects abstract reasoning of children in the developing world. Computers in Education, 59, 989–1000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, N., Postmes, T., Tovote, K. A., & Bos, A. (2014). How modernization instigates social change: Laptop usage as a driver of cultural value change and gender equality in a developing country. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 1229–1248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, V. B., Greenfield, P. M., Wu, M., & Zhou, C. (in prep). Intergenerational differences in child behaviors and parent socialization in the United States.Google Scholar
International Telecommunications Union (2015). The World in 2015: ICT facts and figures. Retrieved on 7/13/2018 from www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2015.pdfGoogle Scholar
International Telecommunications Union (2016). The World in 2016: ICT facts and figures.Google Scholar
International Telecommunications Union (2017). The World in 2017: ICT facts and figures.Google Scholar
Kağıtçıbaşı, C. (2007). Family, Self, and Human Development across Cultures: Theory and application (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kline, S. L. & Liu, F. (2005). The influence of comparative media use on acculturation, acculturative stress, and family relationships of Chinese international students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29, 367–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konrath, S. H., O’Brien, E. H., & Hsing, C. (2011). Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 180–198.Google Scholar
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2005). Control, emancipation and status: The mobile telephone in the teen’s parental and peer group control relationships. In Kraut, R. (Ed.), Information Technology at Home. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Livingstone, S. (2009). Half a century of television in the lives of our children. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 625, 151–163.Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1976). Cognitive Development: Its cultural and social foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Manago, A. M. (2014). Connecting societal change to value differences across generations: Adolescents, mothers and grandmothers in a Maya community in southern Mexico. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 868–887.Google Scholar
Manago, A. M., Greenfield, P. M., Kim, J., & Ward, L. M. (2014). Changing cultural pathways through gender role and sexual development: A theoretical framework. Ethos, 42, 198–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manago, A. M., Guan, A. S., & Greenfield, P. M. (2015). New media, social change, and human development from adolescence through the transition to adulthood. In Jensen, L. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Manago, A. M. & Pacheco, P. (2019). Globalization and the transition to adulthood in a Maya community in Mexico: Communication technologies, social networks, and views on gender. In J. McKenzie (Ed.), Globalization as a Context for Youth Development. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 164, 1–15.Google Scholar
Manago, A. M., Taylor, T., & Greenfield, P. M. (2012). Me and my 400 friends: The anatomy of college students’ Facebook networks, their communication patterns, and well-being. Developmental Psychology, 48, 369–380.Google Scholar
Mandell, D. S., Thompson, W. W., Weintraub, E. S., Destefano, F., & Blank, M. B. (2005). Trends in diagnosis rates for autism and ADHD at hospital discharge in the context of other psychiatric diagnoses. Psychiatric Services, 56, 56–62.Google Scholar
McDaniel, B. T. & Radesky, J. S. (2018). Technoference: Parent distraction by technology and associations with child behavior problems. Child Development, 89, 100–109.Google Scholar
Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No Sense of Place: The impact of electronic media on social behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mundy-Castle, A. C. (1974). Social and technological intelligence in Western and non-Western cultures. Universitas, 4, 46–52.Google Scholar
National Institute of Mental Health (1972). Television and Growing Up: The impact of televised violence. Report to the Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service.Google Scholar
Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 15583–15587.Google Scholar
Ortner, S. B. (2003). New Jersey Dreaming: Capital, culture, and the class of ‘58. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pea, R. Nass, C., Meheula, L., Rance, M., Kumar, A., Bamford, H., Nass, M., Simha, A., Stillerman, B., Yang, S., & Zhou, M. (2012). Media use, face-to-face communication, media multitasking, and social well-being among 8- to 12-year-old girls. Developmental Psychology, 48, 327–336.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2016). Five facts about online dating. Retrieved July 16, 2018 from www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/29/5-facts-about-online-dating/Google Scholar
Ra, C. K., Cho, J., Stone, M. D., De la Cerda, J., Goldenson, N. I., Moroney, E., … Leventhal, A. M. (2018). Association of digital media use with subsequent symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder among adolescents. JAMA, 320, 255–263.Google Scholar
Radesky, J. S., Kistin, C. J., Zuckerman, B., Nitzberg, B. S., Gross, J., Kaplan-Sanoff, M., & Augustyn, M., & Silverstein, M. (2014). Patterns of mobile device use by caregivers and children during meals in fast food restaurants. Pediatrics, 133, e833–e849.Google Scholar
Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8–18 year olds. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation.Google Scholar
Rosen, L. D. (2007). Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the net generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, L. D., Cheever, N. A. & Carrier, L. M. (2008). The association of parenting style and child age with parental limit setting and adolescent MySpace behavior. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29, 459–471.Google Scholar
Rosser, J. C., Lynch, P. J., Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D. A., Klonsky, J., & Merrell, R. (2007). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century. Archives of Surgery, 142, 181–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sales, N. J. (2016). American Girls: Social media and the secret lives of teenagers. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Salomon, G. (1994). Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning: An exploration of how symbolic forms cultivate mental skills and affect knowledge. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Santos, H. I., Varnum, M. E. W., & Grossmann, I. (2017). Global increases in individualism. Psychological Science, 28, 1228–1239.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schiffrin, H. H., Liss, M., Miles-McLean, H., Geary, K. A., Erchull, M. J., & Tahner, T. (2014). Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23, 548–557.Google Scholar
Schwartz, S. H., Melech, G., Lehmann, A., Burgess, S., Harris, M., & Owen, V. (2001). Extending the cross-cultural validity of the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 519–542.Google Scholar
Serpell, R. (1984). Research on cognitive development in Sub-Saharan Africa. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 7, 11–127.Google Scholar
Shapka, J. D., Onditi, H. Z., Collie, R. J., & Lapidot-Lefler, N. (2018). Cyberbullying and cybervictimization within a cross-cultural context: A study of Canadian and Tanzanian adolescents. Child Development, 89, 89–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sherman, L. E., Greenfield, P. M., Hernandez, L. M., & Dapretto, M. (2017). Peer influence via Instagram: Effects on brain and behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. Child Development. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12838Google Scholar
Sherman, L. E., Hernandez, L. M., Greenfield, P. M., & Dapretto, M. (2018). What the brain “likes”: Neural correlates of providing feedback on social media. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13, 699–707.Google Scholar
Sherman, L. E., Michikyan, , M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2013). The effects of text, audio, video, and in-person communication on bonding between friends. CyberPsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 7(2), Article 3. doi: 10.5817/CP2013-2–3Google Scholar
Sherman, L. E., Payton, A. A., Hernandez, L. M., Greenfield, P. M., & Dapretto, M. (2016). The power of the like in adolescence: Effects of peer influence on neural and behavioral responses to social media. Psychological Science, 27, 10027–10035.Google Scholar
Stavrinos, D., Pope, C. N., Shen, J., & Schwebel, D. C. (2018). Distracted walking, bicycling, and driving: Systematic review and meta-analysis of mobile technology and youth crash risk, Child Development, 89, 118–128.Google Scholar
Sticca, F. & Perren, S. (2013). Is cyberbullying worse than traditional bullying? Examining the differential role of medium, publicity, and anonymity for the perceived severity of bullying. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, 739–750.Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, K., Šmahel, D., & Greenfield, P. M. (2006). Connecting developmental processes to the internet: Identity presentation and sexual exploration in online teen chatrooms, Developmental Psychology, 42, 395–406.Google Scholar
Sun, C., Bridges, A., Johnson, J., & Ezzell, M. B (2016). Pornography and the male sexual script: An analysis of consumption and sexual relations. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45, 983–994.Google Scholar
Tönnies, F. (1957). Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft), trans. C. P. Loomis. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. (Original work published in German in 1887.)Google Scholar
Tower, R. B., Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (1979). Differential effects of television programming on preschoolers’ cognition, imagination, and social play. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 49, 265–281.Google Scholar
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. New York: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Twenge, J. (2017). iGen: Why today’s super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy – and completely unprepared for adulthood – and what that means for the rest of us. New York: Atria Books.Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18, 765–780.Google Scholar
Tynes, B., Reynolds, L., & Greenfield, P. M. (2004). Adolescence, race and ethnicity on the Internet: A comparison of discourse in monitored vs. unmonitored chat rooms. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 25, 685–698.Google Scholar
Uhls, Y. T. & Greenfield, P. M. (2011). The rise of fame: An historical content analysis. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 5(1), article 1.Google Scholar
Uhls, Y. T. (2012). The value of fame: Preadolescent perceptions of popular media and their relationship to future aspirations. Developmental Psychology, 48, 315–326.Google Scholar
Uhls, Y. T., Zgourou, E., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014). 21st century media, fame, and other future aspirations: A national survey of 9–15 year olds. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 8(4), article 5.Google Scholar
UNICEF (2017). Children in a Digital World: The state of the world’s children 2017.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Weinstock, M. (2015). Changing epistemologies under conditions of social change in two Arab communities in Israel. International Journal of Psychology, 50, 29–36.Google Scholar
Weinstock, M., Ganayiem, M., Igbariya, R., Manago, A. M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2015). Societal change and values in Arab communities in Israel: Intergenerational and rural-urban comparisons. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44, 19–38. doi: 10.1177/00220221/1455/792Google Scholar
Williams, T. B. (1985). Implications of a natural experiment in the developed world for research on television in the developing world. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 16, 263–287.Google Scholar
Williams, T. B. (1986). The Impact of Television: A natural experiment in three communities. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wober, M. (1975/2014). Psychology in Africa. International African Institute. Republished as a Psychology Revival. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zhou, C., Yiu, V., Wu, M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2017). Perception of cross-generational differences in child behavior and parent socialization. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(1), 62–81.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×