Report 4

Getting hold of cyber psychology
For this report is looked at Dr. James principles of creating a virtual presence and Dr. Suler's report on The Psychology of Cyber space

What is Cyber Psychology and what are its principles?

When we surf the net, we are what we call a virtual world. Being in this world is much different than being in physical world. In the physical world we communicate and transmit feelings and emotions, through many channels. When we meet a person for the first time we can talk to them and make judgments on not just what they say but also how they react, their body language, and their physical appearance. But in cyber space we can only judge others by what they write or what pictures or icons that they post. So Cyber Psychology is about our on-line relationships (via e-mail or news groups), and our on-line personality. These on-line relationships are actually a relatively new type of communication in which we can get in touch with people from all over the world. The internet allows us to be many places in a short deal of time, without leaving our chairs. In cyber space, there is no stereo typing on physical appearance since we never know if we are talking to a rich or poor, White, Black, or Asian person, and not even male or female. Another aspect of Cyber Psychology is creating a homepage and at the same time a virtual presence.

Virtual Presence

Since cyber space is not biased and doesn't allow us to judge others by physical attributes, it is very important to know how to create what Dr. James calls a virtual presence. What is a virtual presence?? Well, think about this, if no one visits your page, does it really exist? From a scientific view, no. If we take a scientific view, things only exist if we can prove it. So in essence your page exists only in the minds of the people who visit your page. The two major points in creating a virtual presence are, access and usage.

By access we mean that your home page should be easy to get to and the more links people make to them the more accessible we are. So, that's why being in a cyber community (like this class) is good, because future students will make links to you and then your page then becomes more accessible. But remember, people will only make links to your page if it's interesting, easy to read, important to them or entertaining!

As I explained above that your page only exists in the minds of the people who visit your page. This is what I mean by usage. So the more people that visit your page, the more of a presence you have made. Taking this into account, some might be quick to say that "a counter is then an indicator of usage and therefore more of a presence." That may be true on the surface level. I mean now that someone has gone to your page, it now exists to them, right? But to me, just because someone visits your page, doesn't mean they used it. In my opinion for something to be used, it has to have an effect. In my opinion for a page to be used it has to effect someones life in someway or another(it dosen't have to be somthing big) it could be somthing small like make them think of something or for them to just make a mental judgement of what you said. I don't think that just because someone clicked on your page you have established a real presence. (Just because I buy an AB-roller doesn't mean I use it! I only get results from it if I use it. ha ha)

Who would be interested in Cyber Psychology?

Now days more and more people are getting online and are creating web pages, as we move further and further into the computer age. I assume that anyone who uses the internet or is creating a page would be interested in it. But I imagine that people who are just learning the internet would benefit most from Cyber Psychology, since they probably are just trying to learn by the hit and miss method. This page would help those people who are getting frustrated trying to create a web page.

What are its directions

As more and more people go online, and as technology progresses, there will be a greater need for people to understand how the internet works as well as how it effects them, what their online personalities are, how to create a virtual presence, and what virtual reality is.

What is virtual reality and how does it relate to the mind

Since virtual reality is such a huge and expanding phenomenon that doesn't take up any physical space, I like to compare it to a dream or a thought. In the sense that they too are real but take up no physical space. So in the term virtual reality, I don't like to think of it as almost like reality, like most people do, but rather more than reality. I would not like to think that our thoughts and dreams are not real or almost real, but rather that they are more than reality, like a fantasy or a dream which can take us anywhere at any time with out leaving the room or getting on a plane. I like to think that they exist not within the boundaries of reality but rather outside the boundaries. I would not like to extend my logic to say that our minds and thoughts are just a bunch of electromagnetic pulses firing across axons and neurons. If we look at it that way, then we would be reduced to mindless drones that arn't in control of anything. So in a sense, virtual reality is like a that. It takes up no physical space and like a dream or a thought we can be anywhere we want to be by just a click of a button.

Spirituality of clicking on a link

Let's continue my analogy of cyber space and virtual reality as a thought or dream. Well, since we can choose our thoughts, we can certainly choose what sites to visit and in a sense, what we choose to view imposes moral values. I mean whether we choose to view Disneyland or pornography implies something about ourselves the same way that if we choose to think of ways to manipulate people or to help them does. Those types of moral judgments apply to all aspects of our lives, even our thoughts, feelings, and yes, web sites. So clicking or not clicking on a link to a web site is like makeing a decision, and therefore spiritual in the sense that it reflects our morals and beliefs.
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