Cognition and User Behavior

Today's modern devices in the digital world (particularly in first-world nations) engage users cognition in ways that would have been unimaginable only just a few decades ago. Some individuals growing up in more technologically advantaged countries are so immersed in technology that they literally have never known a time when there was no Internet. This group of individuals are commonly known as "digital natives."

• Do you think that there are any downsides to being a "digital native?"

• Is there ever a point where individuals in modern society are expected to do too much multitasking?

• Is there potential that Americans will offload too much of their natural cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory, perception, and learning, onto technological gadgetry held in their hands?

• Can some aspects of distributed cognition cause human users to become "mentally lazy" as a result of technology's ongoing influence in their daily lives?

• Have our daily interactivities become homogenized through our collective use of technologies in a sense that we need to understand fewer mental models?