The book Digital Ethics: Human Behavior in a Geospatial Context appeared in the aftermath Ernest Strongman Forum In Digital Ethics, which was held in Germany in the summer of 2022. In the introductory chapter, Thomas Pausa professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Addiction and the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Montreal, explains how our use of the Internet was the spark for the forum and the resulting report, to which thirty researchers contributed.
Here is an excerpt (free translation):
“Studying the impact of the environment on individuals poses a major challenge: the lack of multidimensional data. To answer this question, a new approach is emerging: digital ethology, which monitors human behavior through its digital traces and relies on huge data sets such as electronic medical records and large cohort studies. These “footprints” reveal the social environment of an area. The physical environment is also taken into account using digital tools. The goal is to understand how we humans transform our environments and how these influence our brain development and aging.
A population neuroimaging expert answers our questions to help us see more clarity about this emerging science of digital behavioral science.
