The Dark Side of Digitalization

Abstract

In academia and mass media, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is largely and commonly seen as a main facilitator of learning processes. As ICT eases access to information and knowledge, independent of geographic area and field of interest, and contributes significantly to the development of various human skills and competencies, its influence in lifelong learning is mainly recognized as a positive one. On the other side of the story, digitalization comes with some challenges, exerted both at the individuals’ and communities’ level. Modern classes with digital screens, with laptops for the teachers or tablets for each student, which aim to improve the learning process or make it more attractive, are becoming more and more common. This leads to the fact that the traditional way of learning is rapidly replaced by the new technology approaches. Students speak less, they type more; they don’t remember things, they have their browser where they can find all the needed answers or solutions. In this spirit, this paper reviews the effect of digitalization on human thinking, trying to elucidate the ways in which trends like big data, information overload, and fake news are affecting humans’ intellect, understanding capacity, attention span, active presence in learning communities and magnifying cognitive biases like exposure problem, backfire effect, strawman fallacy etc. After the in-depth literature review on the topic, some suggested solutions for educators and providers of e-learning software are formulated, as a consistent adaptation of attitudes, teaching materials, ways of providing information and software functionalities is necessary in order to transform the so-called “dark” effects of ICT in brighter ones.