Evaluating the Risk of Digital Addiction in Blended Learning Environments: Considering ICT Intensity, Learning Style, and Architecture

Abstract

Digital addiction is a phenomenon where people who might take up addictive substances or other self-medicating activities do so instead with information and communications technology. The environment in which someone finds themselves is known to influence their behaviour. This might be as a result of the environment placing more demands on people with one cognitive set-up compared to those with a different one. One might not normally think of education environments as addictive, but the introduction of technology into them can affect different learners in different ways. Through computing a measure of brain activity called knol (k), this paper seeks to explore how learners with different learning styles react in environments that are differentiated according to the intensity of ICTs used and the physical architecture of the learning environment in which those ICTs are used.