Spring 2027

Psychological Effects of the Internet

Examines empirical evidence on how the Internet affects learning, communication, socialization, attention, development, and aging through original research synthesis.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Morton Gernsbacher

The workload was described as tedious with many small details and a high volume of work. While the material itself was not considered difficult, students noted the need for strict adherence to formatting requirements.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify nine previous technologies or past-times that were previously feared - and appraise how those fears parallel fears about the internet.

  • Assess five principles of learning on which Internet based higher education capitalizes.

  • Evaluate five challenges that college students face today and how Internet based education can tackle each challenge.

  • Critique the claim that the Internet is making interpersonal communication briefer and less formal.

  • Illustrate four intentional and four unintentional incidents in which the Internet has amplified mass communication.

  • Connect the social psychological principle of similarity attraction to the popularity of online dating apps; connect interpersonal aggression to the phenomena of online bullying and trolling.

  • Interpret how and why emotional contagion spreads through the Internet; hypothesize why there are so many photos, gifs, and videos of cats on the Internet.

  • Identify how each of the six sources of motivation can affect Internet use; describe five reasons why people bing watch (TV shows or movies).

  • Adjudicate four reasons why the Internet is not changing our attention spans.

  • Descriminate three primary decision making heuristics and generate an example of how each applies to internet use

  • Relate two positive effects of Internet use on agin and two on child development.

  • Explain how much variance in Internet activities is accounted for by personality factors; describe four famous selfies made prior to the Internet.

  • Evaluate whether Internet-based psychological therapy works as well as in-person therapy.

  • Formulate two ways that secondary Internet data (Facebook likes, Tweets, Wikipedia clicks, etc.) can answer psychological research questions.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

PSYCH 401, 403, 405, 406, 413, 414, 428, 449, 450, 454, 456, 460, 462, 464,SOC/​PSYCH 453,PSYCH/​GEN&WS 522, or ZOOLOGY/​PSYCH 523

PSYCH 532

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

CHELSEA ANDREWS is recorded teaching in Fall 2022, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Morton Gernsbacher, Chelsea Andrews

Students described the course as straightforward with clearly laid out expectations and well-structured information. The class was viewed as manageable if students followed specific directions closely.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.54 GPA, 78.7% A/AB (n=183 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.40 GPA, 73.1% A/AB (n=156 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.67 GPA, 85.1% A/AB (n=181 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Morton Gernsbacher

The workload was described as tedious with many small details and a high volume of work. While the material itself was not considered difficult, students noted the need for strict adherence to formatting requirements.

Past student reviews · Morton Gernsbacher, Chelsea Andrews

Some students found interactions with instructors and TAs frustrating, noting that questions were often redirected back to the syllabus rather than answered. Feedback on assignments was perceived by some as condescending or unhelpful.

Topics

  • Impact of the Internet on cognitive processes, communication, and social development across the lifespan.
  • Social psychology of online interactions, including dating, bullying, and trolling.
  • Effectiveness of Internet-based psychological therapy compared to in-person care.

Skills

  • Synthesizing original research literature and formulating research questions using secondary Internet data.
  • Appraising historical technology fears and critiquing claims about internet-mediated communication.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

7 earlier forecasts · 0.13 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
PSYCH 532 · Spring 2027

Psychological Effects of the Internet

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:820:024433",
    "course_id": "PSYCH 532",
    "course_uid": "course_2620967f0c6995041a760c37",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "024433",
    "source_subject_id": "820",
    "title": "Psychological Effects of the Internet",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "48a5fe7e4ae4781b2ef70fede10afdf602ea64dd270ff8573501c91bb631e007",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}