Digital dementia

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Digital dementia is a catchphrase from media psychology . Since 2012, it has been an alleged phenomenon that is said to be triggered by the increased use of digital media. Children and adolescents who used digital media early and often did not achieve the intelligence quotient they could achieve, and an accelerated decline in mental and social skills was observed in adults. The term digital dementia in its dominant meaning today was coined by the brain researcher Manfred Spitzer and especially taken up critically by the media psychologists Markus Appel and Constanze Schreiner .

Concept history

Up until the 2000s, the largely synonymous pair of terms digital dementia and digital Alzheimer's disease referred to the fear of a comprehensive loss of the collective memory of cultures, which is triggered by the fact that data carriers are irrevocably lost. Information stored in analog format has long been lost due to the mechanical and chemical deterioration of paper as a data carrier and the no longer legibility of documents on analog data carriers such as records, audio and video cassettes. It is only recently that digital forgetting has added to this process the non-readability of data carriers such as B or A disks or CDs without the appropriate drives. What is new is the relatively short time in which data carriers can be used (especially in comparison to old written documents; cf. the English verb “to write”, which is derived from “scratch” - in stone; today, inscriptions can still contain ancient monuments can be understood by people who have learned Latin).

The idea that mankind could steer towards an "age of forgetfulness" by the fact that individual people no longer have to learn as much by heart as they used to, or even only have to remember it, because almost everything has become quickly researchable, and because they are spiritual Outsourcing operations to digital devices (e.g. calculators) emerged in South Korea around 2007. Florian Rötzer introduced the term digital dementia in Germany with this meaning .

For Manfred Spitzer, who took up the term in 2012, "dementia", unlike in geriatrics , does not stand for a state of disorientation, which implies the need for care if it is appropriate, but for a process that leads away from an optimal state of mind. The adjective "digital" is intended to clarify the thesis that the constant increase in digital processes is responsible for a state in which people do not acquire and retain knowledge through the use of digital media and no longer use everyday behavior patterns and habits.

Non-fiction book by Manfred Spitzer

In his book "Digital Dementia", the brain researcher Manfred Spitzer talks about various myths that arise through the use of digital media: reduction in social interaction, reduction in social participation, loneliness, less well-being, obesity, negative or no effects of computer-based teaching, ineffectiveness of computer-based learning games, reduced written language skills as well as aggressive experience and behavior due to violent computer games.

Based on studies by South Korean doctors, according to Spitzer 2018, the average intelligence of the country's residents has decreased for some time, especially that of the younger ones.

The book “Digital Dementia” and the publications that followed Spitzer were and continue to be heavily criticized: According to media psychologists, only a slight negative correlation between Internet use and well-being can be statistically proven.

Spitzer is often accused of repeatedly making the serious mistake of mixing correlation and causality in his popular scientific publications . Above all, he does not examine whether there is a causal connection in the specific case and, if so, in which direction this would take effect.

Scientific controversy

Most scientists doubt that the consequences of intensive use of digital media claimed by Manfred Spitzer exist in the "alarmistic" form, as Spitzer describes them. The media psychologists Markus Appel and Constanze Schreiner in particular deal with Spitzer's individual theses.

When it comes to reducing social interaction, there is no significant evidence of a connection, the very small negative effect of the Internet disappears in the longitudinal studies, which even showed a rather positive connection.

There is no evidence of a reduction in social participation; political engagement is even higher with more intensive Internet use. There is no significant connection between internet use and loneliness. In addition, Spitzer does not rely on empirically current studies. Appel and Schreiner admit that there are very small correlations for a correlation between less well-being due to internet use. In the case of TV as a medium, there is a connection between usage and obesity. There is no significant value in the computer medium. There are positive effects in computer-aided teaching, provided the face-to-face teaching method is used. The thesis of the ineffectiveness of computer-based learning games is not empirically supported. Interactive educational games even contribute to increased knowledge. The media psychologists Appel and Schreiner could not confirm a reduction in written language skills. The statement that aggressive experience and behavior are reinforced by violent computer games is empirically supported by Spitzer, but no correlation can be seen.

Spitzer's thesis, according to which the use of digital media is highly addictive and has a similarly harmful effect as the consumption of alcohol or tobacco (the consumption of which, according to Spitzer, is therefore rightly only allowed for adults), hardly meets with acceptance. At a time when the digitization of all areas of life is advancing inexorably, it is not very helpful to demonize them.

In addition, the neurologist Hans-Peter Thier doubts that the issue of “digital dementia” even exists: “The concept of digital dementia is wrong. Medicine understands dementia as a loss of originally available cognitive skills - a loss of memory, a limitation of the ability to think, disorientation and ultimately a disintegration of the personality structure. Dementia can have many causes. One example is brain damage as a result of circulatory disorders. The common denominator of the causes are changes in the structure and physiological processes in the brain [sic!], So that they deviate far from normal. Whatever the use of digital media may do in the brain - there is no evidence whatsoever that it leads to tangible pathological changes in the brain. ”According to Thier, no examination method can be used to tell a brain whether it belongs to an intensive digital media user. On the contrary, there are indications that surfing the Internet has a positive effect on Alzheimer's prophylaxis among seniors .

The mathematician Gunter Dueck is one of Spitzer's critics . Journalist Richard Gutjahr published a controversy between Dueck and Spitzer on his YouTube channel in 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Rötzer: Against digital forgetting. In: Telepolis. February 18, 2003, accessed December 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Florian Rötzer: Are we threatened by "digital dementia"? In: Telepolis. June 11, 2007, accessed December 15, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Manfred Spitzer: The smartphone epidemic. Risks to health, education and society. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-426-30056-5 , pp. 314 f .
  4. ↑ a b Markus Appel, Constanze Schreiner: Digital dementia? Myths and scientific evidence on the effects of Internet use. In: Psychological Rundschau. 65 (1), 2014, pp. 1–10 doi : 10.1026 / 0033-3042 / a000186 .
  5. ↑ Markus Appel, Constanze Schreiner: Living in a digital world: Scientific evidence and problematic fallacies, Opinion on the reply by Spitzer (2015). Retrieved July 20, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Markus Appel, Constanze Schreiner: Living in a digital world: Scientific evidence and problematic fallacies. Opinion on Spitzer's reply . 2015.
  7. ↑ Digitization in schools (Manfred Spitzer and Markus Appel in conversation). In: Deutschlandfunk. March 8, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Norbert Lossau: Brain Research: Digital Dementia? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! In: welt.de. January 2, 2013, accessed December 12, 2018 .
  9. ^ Richard Gutjahr : Backstage: Gunter Dueck vs. Manfred Spitzer / Digital Potency vs. Digital dementia on YouTube , September 21, 2012, accessed December 23, 2019.