General CEU: The Digital Paradox: Why Aren't We Happier?

The Digital Paradox: Why Aren't We Happier. becomes clinically important the moment a team has to turn good intentions into reliable action inside case conceptualization, intervention design, staff training, and literature-informed problem solving.

Provider: BehaviorLive — via Self Set Go

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Course Description

Digital technology use has become one of the most pervasive sources of reinforcement, shaping how we allocate time, attention, and social behavior. In this presentation, Dr. Kostadin Kushlev shares empirical findings on the relationship between smartphone and social media use, well-being, and mental health, focusing on three key processes: displacement, interference, and substitution. These processes are then analyzed through a behavior-analytic lens in discussion with Dr. Adam Ventura, BCBA, who interprets them through the lens of operant learning principles such as stimulus control, response effort, reinforcement, and competing contingencies to interpret how environmental variables influence the persistence of digital habits. Participants will consider how these processes may inform future behavior-analytic assessment and intervention related to technology use and self-management.

What You'll Learn

1. Identify at least three environmental variables (e.g., discriminative stimuli, motivating operations, reinforcement contingencies) that influence digital device use and explain how these variables contribute to patterns of screen-related behavior.
2. Differentiate among the opportunity-cost processes of displacement, interference, and substitution, and describe how each can be conceptualized behaviorally (e.g., as competing contingencies or changes in response effort).
3. Describe at least two antecedent or consequence-based strategies (e.g., environmental redesign, response-effort manipulations, reinforcement of alternative behaviors) that can promote more balanced and intentional technology use.

CEU Credits Earned

Certification Body	Credits	Type
BACB®	1	General
QABA	1	General

About the Instructor