Christine's Report 4 Understanding Cyber-Psychology


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What is Cyber-psychology?
What is Cyberspace?
What are Cyber-psychology Principles?
Who Would Be Interested in it?
What Are its Directions and Topics?
What is the Relationship Between Cyberspace & the Mind?
What is the Spiritual Significance of Clicking on a link
What is Virtual Reality?


What is Cyber-Psychology?

Cyber-psychology is the study of people in virtual presence or in cyberspace, cybercommunity. Cyber means "computer" and by using the computer, we can access to various networks. The networks then create a psychological environment in which we act upon. I read some articles from Cyber-Psych, and found that many people tend to have different personalities while online. When a person is online, he/she tends to find out information of their interests. Once they find their information, they then communicate with others who have similar interests, building up a cyber-community. If you want to read more about cyber-psychology, check out my report 1 and you'll find out more interesting topics about it.Overall cyber-psychology studies how people react in a computer-generated/virtual world and how their personalities change while communicating online.
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What is Cyberspace?

Cyberspace is a psychological environment created by an online network. There are various topics that are included in Cyberspace. For example, there is cyberpsychoogy, which is the study of people in virtual presence on in cyberspace. Cyberspace can't really be touched. "Cyber" means computer and it is used in the sense of virtual. Check out more in Dr. James article on cyber-psychology. In his article, he explains various aspects and answers to some of the questions we have to answer in this report.
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What Are Cyber-Psychology Principles?

The principles of cyber-psychology include the "cyber"environment it create for many people. Networks create a psychological environment in which people can be whoever they want to be on the computer and not fear anything (identity flexibility and animinity). Cyber-psychology is the study of the self while online. It's main purposes it to see if there is a connection between personality and mood while palying on the compuet.Some of cyberspace's qualities include the fact that it has a limited sensory experience. Equalization of status is also one of cyberspace's qualities, in which no one has to feel inferior. Stretching temporal and spacial boundaries, describes cyberspace the best because there are no limits for it to be contained in. One can have access to numerous relationships. Cyberspace is endless, but could also become very addicting. So be aware of the amount of time you spend on the Web. You might one day become a Net-Addict!
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Who Would Be Interested in it?

Psychologists, psychiatrists, and researchers would be greatly interested in cyber-psychology. It covers the way people communicate with each other, to the different personalities we discover about ourselves while online. I would personally find it very interesting to actually do a study on the different types of personalities that people display while they're online.
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What Are its Directions and Topics?

Other topics that can be discussed and discovered through cyber-psychology include cyber-links, cyber-communities, what's ahead for us in the future and where do we go from here. I feel that in the future, we will all be able to tell what kind of personality we each possess while we are on and off the computer and cyberspace.
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What is the Relation Between Cyberspace and the Mind?

Our minds contain three main thinking and processing "servers" that help us perform our daily tasks. They include A/C/S- which are Affective, Cognitive, and Sensory Motor. Feelings that drive our motivations is what affective is made of. Thinking and how we interpret, judge or analyze things, etc., is our cognitive part of our brain functioning. The mind size does not affect the amount of ideas we are able to take in. Cyberspace allows our minds to think one step ahead of us. It plays tricks on our minds, by allowing us to think that there is an end to cyberspace, when in fact, there isn't. By surfing the net, we are able to take in more information, educate and entertain ourselves, and not lose any portion of our minds doing so.
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What is the Spiritual significance of clicking on a link?

In my opinion, I don't believe that there is actually a spiritual connection when you click on a link. Dr. James said in a lecture that "communication is spiritual by clicking." There are many other ways that make communication"spiritual", besides clicking on links. For instance, different graphics and colors can add spice to a person's homepage, therefore making it become a spiritual experience to the reader. There are also different ways to get the information you need to get from the net without clicking. Overall, I guess it would be legit to say that cyberspace could be defined as a spiritual world, and we are all a part of this new "religion". We practice our beliefs daily by clicking on links and enjoying it.Back to Top

What is Virtual Reality?

To understand this concept better, you should get an understanding about "Virtual Reality". Virtual is not quite reality but is more stronger than reality by the way it affects the person's mentality. In virtual presence, you create relationships not physically, but trhough a cyber-community. You create it without those physical characteristics of demography and geography. We do this be our sharing of our ideas through communication. Each online environment creates a different virtual presence. Overall, virtual reality does not exist physically, nor mentally. It exists in a world of its own, in which we are able to get to via computers and new technological devices.


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