Aaron Takahashi's CyberPsychology FAQ

Aaron's CyberPsychology FAQ

Cyberpsychology on the web!
What in the world is ACKS!!!
Cyber-Geeks
What direction does cyberpsychology have in the internet?
Who would want to willingly be a psychologist?
Existing in a virtual environment
What's the relation between cyberspace and the mind?
Clicking is a spiritual act!!!

Cyberpsychology on the web!: This is an online environment created by online networking---->CYBERSPACE! Cyber can be anything that is computer related, therefore cyberpsychology is the study of the anonymous existence in the computer environment.

There are qualities of cyberspace that make it such an appealing enivironment to be in for all types of people. For one there is limited sensory experience and that provides the mind the opportunity to broaden it's boundries. Then there's the luxury of creating a whole new identity and being totally anonymous to all others. Your status does not transfer from the physical world into cyberspace, so you could experience being super rich, deep in poverty, or just middle class. You can stretch your brain to extend normal spacial boundries and travel places with the click of a mouse. You can even have several identities and relationships due to your access to numerous relationships.

Cyberspace provides an entirely new existence for each and every one of us. Cyberspace exercises the mind and opens our eyes to new and never-ending boundries.

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What in the world is ACKS!!!: Actually this is better known as ACS, which is in psychological terms Affective, Cognitive, and Sensory Motor. These accurately describe the features that exist in cyberspace. Affective involves emotions and motivations; Cognitive requires thinking, analyzing, and interpreting; and Sensory Motor involves your sensory skills that are applied to the internet.

While on the computer, the only physical thing that you can do to interact is typing and clicking. Most of the activity involved is within that thick skull of yours and that interacts with the rest of your internal systems. In other words while on the internet you experience a psychological workout. You experience feelings and emotions while reading email, you are constantly trying to analyze your reader to see how they would react to each of your ideas, and you begin to use the parts of your intelect that you've hardly used before. I've just described what ACS is.

Didn't you ever experience a time when you were sending email to someone and you had to think twice about typing a certain word or trying to figure out how to word a sentence. This is because you are using your ability of empathy, or as they say putting yourself in the other person's shoes! Cognitively you're trying to imagine how your friend would react affectively to your message and this is what cyberpsychology is all about.

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Cyber-Geeks: Well if you're reading this then you're already considered as a Cyber-geek, which is not an insult but rather a nickname for those who are interested in broadening their knowledge using the web!

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What direction does cyberpsychology have in the internet?: Cyberpsychology has taken some giant steps recently. Even the virtual environment is not safe from the psychologists and analysts. Cyberpsychology focuses on how people behave and react to the virtual environment. The idea of being anonymous and unjudged has really attracted different types of people from all over the world. If you think about it, the biases involved with cyberpsychology is unbeliveably minimized. While on the computer you have no race, color, social standing, etc. A psychologist can only dream of having this kind of atmosphere for any experiment.

Dr. John Suler's article on "Cyberspace as Psychological Space" makes an interesting comment about the constantly changing atmosphere of the internet. As the technology improves and the ability to communicate in visual and auditory channels are becoming a reality, how will people react to giving up their anonymity? These are just a few examples of the many various topics that psychologists are studying everyday! As technology grows so do we psychologists, our jobs are neverending!

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Who would want to willingly be a psychologist?: If you've ever chatted with someone online, sent email, or published anything on the web, then you have already attempted to become an expert psychologist on the web. What I mean is that by doing these things you have attempted to vision your audiences' reactions and feelings at the time they receive your email, read your page, etc. You can already consider yourself an amateur psychologist.

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Existing in a virtual environment: Allows you to exist as a personality on the web but not physically. By virtual I mean a psychological environment created by online networking. In this environment you can actually create your own personality and virtual environment that you wish. This option of anonymity is the idea that makes the internet such an appealing characteristic.

There are many sites that provide these environments for you and they are catching on fast. Many different MOO's and MUD's as they are commonly referred to and even another environment called The Palace exist which I will talk about later.

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What's the relation between cyberspace and the mind?: As I was browsing through Dr. James's articles I came across a link to a Dr. John Suler and his various articles on cyberpsychology. Dr. Suler started talking about how there are altered states of mind when dealing with cyberspace. I personally took interest in his comments about a virtual environment called The Palace. Dr. James also talked about this type of environment which also includes MOO's and MUD's. However, this virtual environment allows each netizen to choose a character for themselves to use in a graphical environment (a certain part of the Palace). This graphical environment takes the virtual environment to another level, it provides the "virtual world" for the various netizens to further their fantasies of being in a different environment. Dr. Suler states it perfectly, "As the old saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. Visual experiences are psychologically RICH. Images and symbols are the language of the unconscious."

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Clicking is a spiritual act!!!: As Dr. James says "clicking is at once a moral, ethical, economic, and psychological act" because the fact that the computer is not judgemental of what race, color, or economically ranked you are then it is all based on common interests and curiosity. As cyberspace transcends the human body it focuses on the mind and what appeals to the spiritual part of each netizen.

Cyberspace is based on the concept of religion and spirituality. The internet can guide you to a number of things that you are interested in and people who are interested in the same things. Religions bring together many people who all believe in a common thought or idea, they gather together to talk and relate amongst each other their ideas and listen to what their fellow believers have to say.

By clicking you're saying that this is a topic that I can relate to (or one that I'm interested in) and this is where I'm going to find people that understand me or can learn from what I have to say. To these netizens and users, clicking is a very spiritual act!

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