The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online

by Mary Aiken

A famous study of pigeons demonstrated this: When pigeons were consistently rewarded for a certain activity, they did not necessarily continue the activity. But they were much more responsive, and much more prone to act, when given intermittent reinforcement. Maximum responsiveness was achieved when they were rewarded half the time.

Learning about solitude and being alone is the bedrock of early development, and you don’t want your kids to miss out on that because you’re pacifying them with a device.

Studies show that children who have overbearing parents just learn to be more secretive. Worse than that, research shows that when those children run into trouble, the last people they will turn to are their overcontrolling parents. In other words, be vigilant but not a vigilante.

“Let your critics be your gurus. You can treat them as an opportunity. Ask yourself why you’re ruminating on a comment. Why does it bother you? What insecurities are being activated in you?”

Travel is invigorating. While human beings for the most part are made uncomfortable by too much disruption, travel is a contained way to experience newness—new environments, new cultures, new ways of thinking and feeling. (In fact, a gene has been identified that is associated with a need for novelty-seeking and adventure.)

So much of the tech community is caught up in a game of competition, and what appears to be a reckless pursuit of gains and tech improvements with too little or no cohesive thought about society and the greater good. We cannot continue to pretend there aren’t unintended consequences.