“Are bad things bad?”: Technopsychology and the problem of unacknowledged normativity.

This article explores the problem of unacknowledged normativity, which is what happens when empirical studies treat normative concepts as if they were neutral. In doing so, studies end up asking open-ended questions about inherently normative concepts (“are bad things bad?”), which leads to pseudoempirical research and tautological findings. The article illustrates this problem through two case studies. The first case shows how popular concepts like “phubbing,” “technoference,” and “problematic media use” carry explicitly negative connotations, yet are treated as neutral in empirical studies, which leads to tautological conclusions about their detrimental impact on relationship satisfaction. The second case examines the concept of “media multitasking” and demonstrates that many studies equate multitasking with distraction, which leads to circular conclusions about its negative effects on academic performance. Finally, the article argues for the adoption of Wittgensteinian conceptual analysis to address this problem. By mapping the grammar of key concepts and scrutinizing their operational definitions, researchers can better understand the inherent normativity of their concepts and avoid pseudoempirical research. Ultimately, this approach aims to enhance the conceptual rigor and clarity of empirical psychological studies.