Communication Technologies and Social Transformation: Their Impact on Human Development

Abstract

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.

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