What would you really like to ask a psychologist Erik Bohjort?:
Trying to integrate as a refugee in a new country requires a lot of behavioral change. What would be multiple lines to approach that change, knowing that most refugees will deal with (tremendous) loss and trauma, while avoiding post-migration stress and trauma .
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What would you really like to ask a psychologist Erik Bohjort?:
I have just came back to my country after I went abroad for a couple of years. I acknowledge that I have changed a lot that I am more honest with myself. I am now experiencing reverse shock culture and have a quite hard time to adjust. I also aware that I become defensive from my childhood trauma. I was a people pleaser (I am still but way much lesser) and always think about what people gonna think about me.
I wanna learn how to brace myself to go out from the shell and wear the new wings without being defensive.
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Hi @Bohjort! Given your expertise, what would you want policy makers to know if/when they consider the potential harms and benefits of fin tech and other digital tools for child education?
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I think we all agree that technology can and does manipulate people at the individual and the group levels, often with consequences. But how can one even know or discern if she or he, or their children are being manipulated by technology? Is it a “frog in the hot water” situation where you can’t really tell until it is “too late”?
Hello @Leonie,
Great question! My first and a bit unstructured thoughs on the topic:
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We see that regular education can lack the ability to meet the child at their level and adapt the learnings into something that is actually interesting and useful to the child. For example, private finance education in schools for children is often found to have no effect on the financial literacy of the children. Digital tools can be made more flexible and as such meet the childs needs and adapt the learnings into something that is useful.
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The children of today and tomorrow will most likely live in completely digitalised economical landscapes and as such policy makers need to work with this in mind.
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I would like to advice policy makers to embrace the digitalisation of both the financial world as well as education. However, we must not forget that where we are in the development of the area right now is that these are tools to help us rather than complete systems that will give us all encompassing solutions. In short, tools that can and should complement other best practices in the fields.
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Digital tools and services in their own are not inherently “bad” for children and youth, and children of today and tomorrow will most likely be what some call digital natives. With this in mind I believe strongly that we cannot cut corners when it comes to the evaluation of potential benefits and harms.
Do you have any more specific questions regarding this I am more than happy to continue digging deeper and reason with you!
/Erik
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@daveed, I love that you asked this question before I had the chance to include in my bio that I have been part of some amateur e-sports!
Now I am in no way an expert when it comes to what is or makes something popular in high school and college, but I will reason with you for a bit.
I imagine that watchability, but also tradition are some of the driving factors when it comes to what is popular. So regarding watchability I see some problems that need to be solved for knowledge-sports to bloom. Me as a viewer, I need to in some way understand what is going on, what sets a good play or player apart from an average one. This understanding is hard to create and showcase in the same way as football, soccer or basketball as knowledge-sports inherently are harder to understand.
My first two ideas, possible part solutions to explore:
- Showcase competition in lower than the absolute top levels of performance so that the best practicioners can analyse and explain what is going on and why this is exciting to see. We already see examples of this within some e-sports and chess communities.
- Build the sport so that the viewer can access more information about the game state than the competitors and as such understand easier and faster what is going on.
Thank you for the question, I’d love to discuss this further!
/Erik
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Thank you @Bohjort! Before I respond with more specific questions, I do have a related, though distinct question(s) first:
Has the Covid-19 pandemic effected the ways in which you think about the importance of digital learning tools for education? If so, how? What have you observed about the shifting role of digital education tools and e-learning during the pandemic? How might this shape education in the future?
@nadia I will revisit this question more in detail next week as I am currently in a project where we are exploring in depth what factors are important when it comes to time and timing behaviour change. Please do remind me to discuss this again with you then.
My tip of tongue answer, behaviour change is often the easiest to make happen when an individual find themselves in new contexts filled with novelty. Since tech is moving faster than ever and we are subject to more and more novelty on a daily basis I am curiously exploring the idea that novelty is becoming the new normal. Perhaps this will lead us into less flexibility and fewer moments of willful choice?
As I wrote, please ping me next week as I would love to discuss and partake in the AMA!
/Erik
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Do you think that there is a sense in making educational technology intentionally “hard” as to generate learning experiences in overcoming hurdles, or do you think that in that case they just never stand any chance against “easy” commercial/entertainment products? I guess that also goes for behavioural change in general. Changing your behaviour is hard, can “easy” UX help, or is it maybe even counterproductive in some cases as it creates false impressions and expectations and there will always be another even easier version that might be focused more on entertainment?
( In this context I like to bring up the story from our pannel on freelancing and childcare, where a parent who temselves grew up exploring tech early by himself originally planned to introduce tech to their children as soon as possible, but after seeing their 2 year old interact with and ipad with out any challenging expiriences shifted thei opinion 180 degree and decided to limit their tech contact heavyly since modern “easy” ux is not chalenging creativity or learning in their opinion.)
Is there some point at which it does start to have an effect? I am not very good at math. Never have been. I got by in school, but never that well. I did understand that arithmetic was part of regular life so that part is fine. But deeper math has always been a struggle. But in school I don’t remember ever being told for example that if you want to build something it will go a lot better if you understand geometry. (Often when working on my house I wish I had understood it better.) And with personal finance - I doubt I ever would have paid attention to it as a child as you suggest. (I grew up in a solid middle class household that always got the bills paid on time and the pantry was always full.) But by high school I might have paid attention to some aspects of personal/private finance had someone linked it better to reality of daily life. As in “here is how to not go broke, which you probably will if you don’t pay attention.” For me, school often had that disconnect between what they teach and my daily life when it comes to math.
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@johncoate such important question!
For the issue with parenthood while understanding and monitoring our childen and their online activities I have no direct solution. I too see the problem with our society today asking everything of everyone and that those who do not function independently (in this case children) are often then faced with less of the resources needed. I can only hope that with our increasing understanding we will move towards a society where there will be time for all parents to be and take part of their childrens’ lives.
Thank you for you question!
/Erik
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@matteo_uguzzoni a very central question in todays pandemic society and one that many struggle with.
My premier tip: If there is a way for you to share your loneliness feelings with any family or friends that you might have. Then this might be one of the best ways for them to be notified and as such be able to help you and be there for and with you.
/Erik
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@zinstance The complex question of how to work with sustainable and healthy behaviour change in refugees I must humbly say is outside of my expertise.
However, relating to the question on time and timing from @nadia , I see that the period directly after the migration can be a central period of time where one has the opportunity to try and implement behaviours that will help the individual in the long term.
/Erik
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Children learn behaviour from parents. Which means they watch them on their phones and laptops all the time. It becomes one of those things like alkohol where parents say it is ok for them but not for children.
We ays “you should go out and play, you should not be in front of the screen all day”. But many adults do just that.
Behavioural change in terms of technology use for children maybe has to start with adults. What are good ways to monitor and balnce your own technology use, social media intake and how you balance that out with other activities?
@johncoate, maybe aktively parenting becomes the attempt to actively live the lifestyle you would like to see? WHich does not mean not using tech as that is not possible nor good in today’s world. But to use it in a “good way” and to also do creative and outside stuff, which is also good for you.
That would bring that back to working on your own behaviour, or on that of other adults to start out with.
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@Leonie Yes, certainly! Seeing how society has been forced to adapt to digital learning platforms and solutions to be able to provide education to children and youths has been quite an eye opener for me and many educators I have been in touch with. It is not an easy transition to make and many educators are witnessing that the new ways of distance and e-teaching are more demanding than classical in class lessons.
This to me points to a need to either better the tools available for educators or completely rethink how education is to be conducted in the future. Perhaps we can, continuing on my idea from my former reply, give the childen more agency in their learning with adaptable digital tools that do not require them or their educators to work within coherent lessons or classes?
/E
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That makes sense. Sadly it is just in this period that refugees are often hindered from many things, for example working or even exploring their new surroundings by burocratical hurdles.
Did you experience any of those/know someone who did @Zinstance and how did you/they react to it/deal with it?
@Bohjort @nadia @zinstance. I research the effects of language requirements on refugees and migrants in Germany - specifically the ways in which language-integration programmes (which most newcomers are required to complete) impact their socioeconomic (im)mobility. I have found that while these programmes promise a fast and sustainable route for newcomers to participate in the German economy/society, they in practice significantly delay their mobility and inclusion. Because of this slowing effect, newcomers to Germany experience long periods of waiting, boredom and temporal uncertainty. During the first wave of the pandemic, Germany shifted its language integration courses online through a state-funded, e-learning platform. There was a great deal of optimism at the time around how these programmes might actually make things much easier for newcomers: giving them more flexibility to schedule their work and learning, and accommodating to a range of different learning preferences and abilities. However, I found that for my informants, shifting to e-learning significantly amplified their sense of uncertainty and stuckness: they felt overwhelmed by the platforms and didn’t feel they could navigate the course content without the in-person dynamics of being in a classroom. Above all, it was unclear whether the online exercises counted toward their overall course attendance and if they could finish the course online at all. Though there is so much optimism around e-learning, particularly due to the pandemic, I wonder how much of it is more about bridging the time between rather than expanding and improving existing methods of learning. @Bohjort have you encountered any similar affective/psychological impacts (e.g. feelings of stuckness, impatience, boredom)?
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Time seems to be one of the things that come back as a crucial topic in relation to behavioural change, in adults, in children, in technology development.
Would be very interested in learning something about this project you mentioned in reaction to @nadia 's questions regarding time you are working with @Bohjort when it is the time to share it 
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@MariaEuler brilliant question!
My answer to this can be summed up into one word. Balance.
Now there are effects on learning, motivation and behaviour change that relates to the idea of overcoming hurdles. In psychological terms we speak of effort justification, so we would want to give a learning experience that is percieved as hard to overcome to make the learner feel that they have achieved something worthwile - at the same time we must make sure that the effort needed is not so large as to make the lesson aversive and as such drive away the learner.
Now in more detail, I imagine that easy UX combined with hard lessons is a more beneficial way to go. Such as the effort put in by the learner is dedicated to solving and working with what is to be learn rather than the logistics of finding the right material or struggling with unintuitive UX.
I would love do discuss this more, I have some other examples on how effort affect learning!
/E
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asyncronos working is also something that is extremle important for everyone working remotely and something where currently a lot of people/organisations can be observed struggeling with changing their behaviour. They just make every former in person meeting into a zoom meeting and it is far from effective.
This connects to our research on remote working: