Getting Hold of Cyberpsychology

Now you ask, "What is an psychological environment like in cyberspace?" Very good question, Dr. James would kill to have someone ask that as a topic for discussion (hint). Of course, he would make you answer the question, so I'll try and help you out. From a psychological point of view, it can be based on A/C/S. Dr. James defines it as:Affect, Cognitive, and Sensory.

Affect, being your emotions, feeling, motivations, etc., are brought on by being in cyberspace. What kinds of emotions, feelings, and motivations get carried out? How does it influence your actions? Get it? Anyway, it's stuff like that. Then Cognitive, as you may already know from all those psychology classes, refers to your thinking, how you analyze, interpret, imply, deny, etc. By the way, all of these definitions comes our class discussions. If you get the jist of what the words may mean, you could probably add on to the definitions. Lastly, Sensory, has to do with touch, sound, sight, and what they all mean when combined with one another.

Are you following so far? I hope so because now, we tie all of this into Dr. Suler's paper. He bases his six psychological features of cyberspace on particularly these idea(s) that I've just mentioned. Before you start clicking off on the upcoming links I have for you, please don't get discouraged by the depth of Dr. Suler's report.

Human Becomes Electric...
For now, just stick to the six features because they are clear, concise and to the point. Then again, don't think that you can get away with not reading the rest. Please do so, it's quite interesting. Believe me, you aren't going to find too much things that deal with this subject matter yet! Just think, you're reading about the latest!

Limited Sensory Experience
I'll try to keep this as simple to read, just like Dr. Suler's paper so that we won't get confused. Basically, my understanding of this is just as it says. It's stating that the being in cyberspace is more within your thoughts. Although you can see what's going on, the content of whatever you're looking at inevitably has a psychological effect on you, more than if you were physically there. This type of experience can be quite stimulating. It provokes your mind to think into things, your mind is at work rather than just being physically there.

Identity Flexibility and Anonymity
Again, it's quite obvious. Dr. Suler's referring to identity. It's nice because, he's saying that in cyberspace, you can be whomever you want. Then again, if you want to be yourself, you can mention only what you want revealed. You don't have to worry about whether or not you can draw a persons attention based on what you may look like, or what your name may be. Every time we meet someone new, we can't help but to be judgmental. So,...this can be fun in a sense where you can enhance who you are, or create a new identity all together. Although no one is perfect, I suppose this can be entertaining.

Equalization of Status
This is just like what we discussed. What makes this a little bit different is that, no matter how much you may alter your identity, even if you pretend to be a doctor, your visitors will be taken by your writing style, and how you carry yourself through cyberspace. After a couple of sentences, it comes down to whether or not you can hold the viewers attention/interest. It could also go the other way around. People may feel inferior about reading something that a doctor wrote, and so they will automatically be turned off to reading it, especially if they just want to browse and read freely. At least this way, it could all be changed to whatever you want.

Stretching of Temporal and Spatial Boundaries
This has to be the most impressive feature of cyberspace! When I first learned about all of this, I was stoked! You can communicate with anyone, go anywhere in the world at anytime for free! It can all be done within a few minutes or so. You can take whatever identity and status. Just imagine, two people from polar opposite ends of the worlds with probably polar opposite personalities, lifestyles communicating. All of this within a short amount of time. You would've never imagined it to be so easy, convenient, and available.

Access to Numerous Relationships
Anyone who enters cyberspace has a new outlook, and has opened up their mind to many new dimensions of their thoughts, motives, interests, etc... I feel that this definitely opens up new aspects for psychologists. We're all psychology majors, who would've ever imagined we'd be taking an internet class called psychology 4X9? Taking all of the four features that we've discussed, particularly the ones about status, identity and boundaries, we can find out a lot about people. We can learn that the most compatible in cyberspace may not be anywhere close to being compatible face to face. If people were take a personality test, it may differ from what their online personality is. We can really learn a lot about others and about ourselves just by being online!

It's true, just as Dr. Suler points out, our unconscious really surfaces based upon our actions and thoughts. Meaning, when we click the mouse, it's sort of an unconscious choice, we decide on it so fast. We don't have to think about it, or hold back what we click into. I suppose this is more so, if you are comfortably sitting infront of your own personal computer. As a response to all of this, psychologists can now study new aspects of people in cyberspace just by knowing where they've been in cyberspace. You can just tell what kind of person was sitting in front of the computer before you, by looking into what they saved onto bookmarks, if they did not delete it.

In class, we've discussed this aspect by saying that we can alter how we want to sound by editing our work, to make it sound a certain way or style. This can draw new and different audiences. Psychologically, this can change a particular persons character all together, it's like a self-report. We can step back and take a look at what we've become, who we are capable of becoming, or just to look at what we are really like. For instance, if you've always wanted to be apart of a certain group, class, or wanted to just be a kid again, this is your opportunity to do so. Do you think it can help you overcome certain obstacles of your life, just to be that kid again, talk with the elite? Maybe you'll even realize that being yourself is just fine. It's a way of stepping back and reorganizing, a sort of maintenance for yourself. We could go on and on with this psychobabble. Someone should set up a chat room to discuss these issues. Maybe, you'll get a chance to share your views with others and expand on this in cyberspace. We could call it House of Freaks, I bet that'll attract a lot of people!