Abstract
Mixed associations are recurrently found between computer-mediated communication (CMC) and mental health & well-being. Recently, different theoretical efforts have emerged to parse these mixed results. However, evolutionary considerations in such efforts remain largely on the periphery, despite fields like evolutionary medicine and anthropology often theorising about mental health problems arising due to evolutionarily novel environmental circumstances: so-called evolutionary mismatch. While certain aspects of CMC have been previously identified as plausible evolutionary mismatches, two important limitations emerge: (a) a failure to contextualise the negative mental health effects of CMC against other broader societal factors which are plausible pre-existing evolutionary mismatches themselves; (b) ignoring the positive effects of CMC in mitigating these mismatches. In this paper, we propose an evolutionary perspective that addresses these two limitations while noting distinct epistemic and empirical benefits of such a perspective (e.g. providing a culturally invariant theory-driven baseline of ‘normal behaviour’, renewed theoretical focus on alternative variables, concrete design recommendations). Importantly, we contend that our perspective serves as an antidote to the overpathologisation of novel behaviours facilitated by CMC by framing such behaviours within the hunter-gatherer social environment characterising the majority of our evolutionary history.
Katiyar, Tanay