Spotlight on Technology, Culture & Human Behavior

Technological systems increasingly shape how people live, love, and relate—often revealing hidden social pressures and vulnerabilities. This Spotlight traces how digital and cultural infrastructures reorganize everyday life: a hyper-competitive housing market that pushes students toward self-marketing and extreme compromises; growing “app fatigue” that drives singles back toward face-to-face dating; and the continued appeal of biography as a distinctly human form that resists algorithmic speed and simplification. The collection also confronts technology’s darker edges, including evidence that addictive patterns of digital use (more than screen time alone) correlate with youth mental health risks, and the severe harms enabled by online coercion networks targeting children. Curated in JOSHA’s interdisciplinary spirit, these pieces invite readers to see technology not as a neutral backdrop, but as a force reshaping intimacy, opportunity, attention, and safety.