Mark Rosenbaum PhD., Play, Chat, Date, Learn, and Suffer? Merton’s Law of Unintended Consequences and Digital Technology Failures

My guest today is Mark Scott Rosenbaum, Ph.D., Dean, College of Business, Hawaii Pacific University. Previously, he was dean and professor of marketing with the Graham School of Management at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. Prior to his leadership at St. Xavier Rosenbaum was chair and professor of the Department of Retailing at the University of South Carolina, the Kohl's Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, and an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Dr. Rosenbaum is a three-time Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Rosenbaum serves as co-editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, an associate editor for the Journal of Business Research. 

We discuss how digital technologies, including mobile applications, social media, and online games, have impacted the ways that people communicate, learn, play, date, and entertain themselves. 
Although digital technologies offer their users many benefits, these technologies also expose their users to risks. Indeed, many digital users have been victims of cyberbullying, identity theft, and data breaches. We have apps like Tinder, and in the gay community, there's Grindr. If you're a member of the gay community, you can now meet people right next to you. You're no longer this isolated member of a community. That's a great positive. However, what you don't hear much is how many men are raped with Grindr hookups.
Further, some national governments and local jurisdictions use digital technologies, to curtail their citizens’ freedoms, and to enforce laws that criminalize private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity and anything else that particular government is opposed to.
We are fostering internet addictions, we don't realize that digital technologies have a dark side. Numerous studies show that as youth spend more than two hours a day on social media, their depression levels increase. Now, this would almost seem the converse of what reality should be. Because reality means, I'm connected to these networks of friends, I have friends available 24/7/365. This should elevate my self-esteem. I know exactly where everyone is. And yet, young people feel increasingly alone and unhappy.
To my question, “What's the most important thing you have learned so far in your life?” Mark answered that regardless of how tough the beginning is, you have to have a beginning. Take the risk, the challenge, and begin.
Next week my guest will be Dr Stephanie Alice Baker,  Senior Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of London. Dr Baker’s research explores how we connect and communicate online, particularly around issues pertaining to health and wellness. Dr Baker studies influencer culture and the spread of medical misinformation in the context of COVID-19 and the anti-vaccination movement. Please tune in.

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