Social Psychology of Home Page Architecture
by YoonWhan Cho

INTRODUCTION

What do I know about making a home page? Before I begin with the content I asked myself to start this challenging final paper of my undergraduate years. The first answer that came up to my mind was that it is fun to make a home page. It's full of fun enough for me to make me addictive to the process of making it. And the second answer that stroke me was that it should be the fruit of hard work. What I mean by this is it should be made by one's desire for the mastery and the excellence. I guess I may sound too serious about making a home page but that's how I feel about it. My attitude about making a home page cannot be a totally irrelevant one from my attitude toward my life.

It was a great opportunity for me to wrap up my undergraduate years (of expanding mind) and also to have a significant turning point for me to grap a sense of the world that was beyond my knowledge. I really want to thank Dr.James for giving me this new and powerful vision. I guess it was my second inspiration from Dr.James since attending Psy 402 class and acquiring of the existence of Swedenborgian perspective. I guess the truth is, as you once said, "just a matter of whether being smart enough to believe it or not." I want to thank you again for reading this original "my words" about home page.

WHAT IS HOME PAGE?

What is home page? What is it for me? For me, my home page is an access to my knowledge or information that I know of. Then, what is home page in a broad and extended sense? I think home page is the existence. Declaring the existence is what home page does. By looking at a home page, you know the existence of information and get access to an extended information.

With all the connections home pages have, I simply understand it as a place with many connections to other places in cyberspace. I think home page without connection to other existence is no use. Just like human, home page has its life and identity as it exists. But without connections, just like isolated human, it cannot exist in a true sense. There are several reasons that I think home page has life and identity like human.

First, it has its own identity or title. It can be a kind of personal, commercial, educational, or governmental. Second, as it gets name or identity, it can be categorized in a certain group of society. It must falls into any category of societ with any kinds of goal. It belongs to a society or group as it's categorized. Just like human society, each home pages consist a society. Third, it needs a structure. No home page can have its existence without structure. Most home page should have a structure that arranges identity part and life part. Now, it sounds little confusing but what I really mean by structure is a way of putting components of home page, the identity and life. Identity is the part which tells what home page is like. In this part, home page identifies itself and declares its place in a certain category of society. The life part is where internal and external connections are. Just like human, home page has no life unless it interacts with other place. If the place is located within itself, then it is an internal connection. And if the place is outside the home page, then it is an external connection. In Dr.James's article of social psychology of HPA he mentioned about 4 types of links which I didn't specify. However, what I found confusing about the structure of home page is that this distiction of two parts is unclear. Two parts, identity and life parts are so deeply interrelated and almost show a symbiotic relationship.

Home pages of different identity and life as a member of categorized group consist the cybercommunity which I enjoy calling "spiritual world."

I think it's confusing to talk about the spiritual dimension of cyberspace. So, I want to start with my hypothesis about it and will try to generalize it. I personally think that home page is a component of spiritual world or cyberspace. The first reason is that in cyberspace everyone knows their existence but doesn't know where they locate unlike the physical world. Because of its unphysical characteristics, the cyberspace can be a model of spiritual world. And another reason is that in cyberspace everyone has spirit in their own home pages. I mean, there's something about home page that is vital for its life and identity which is similar to spirit for human. I think the spirit in home page could be something that reflects the thought and feeling of the creator of home page. And as I memtioned earlier, the connection and interaction happen among many home pages in cyberspace. The connection between different points and places is like that of spiritual communication. I may sound strange but in a simple concept, it is just a flow of information by clicking on link.

What I meant by spiritual communication is like a flow of information. It could be one way or two way depending on the fact whether those home pages know about the existence of each other. I think here is the most spiritual thing about this flow of information. Let me assume that I know about the existence of a home page and made a link to it, then it's a one way flow of information. And if we both know the existence of each other and made links to each other's home pages, then it's a two way flow of information. But most fascinating thing about this flow of information is that there can be a mediator or medium who can connect each other even if they don't know about each other. Somehow, the flow of information is still alive. For instance, this dirctory home page made by a Korean college student has my home page and the other person's together, so mine and the other person's home page can have connection somehow. This fuction of mediator in spiritual communication is like something happening in spiritual world.

I think spiritual communication is something more than just a flow of information, and in the implication of its essence, the wave of flow and communication in cyberspace is beyond the boundary of physical world. Simple flow of information by virtually navigating through the cyberspace is a complicated consequence of external or internal connection that is made in a home page. But somewhat ironically, its spiritual value also exists in a simple change in this flow of information because this simple change can be momentary and also can be eternal. What I mean by the eternity of change in flow of information is like a situation when you make a link to an information and make a change in flow, and you know that this link will always take you to this specific information that you made link with. You just know of the eternal availability of information unless there's a change in the universe or cyberspace. Do I sound too exaggerated? But I think this spiritual dimension and value is likely possible.

I hope I didn't miss any possible dimensions of spiritual concept of home page and also it helped with answering the question, "What is home page?"

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO INVOLVED IN IT?

First of all, the reason why people are so involved in it is an external motive which is to declare one's existence and keep up with the new trend in technology and information. It is related to one's need to feel secure about the fact whether they are keeping up with the rest of the world. I guess it's a way to confirm their existence. By keeping up with the trend and new revolution in human history, people may feel alive and content about the fact that they are a part of new world. As I found during the search on family home pages and wrote in my group report week13, Del Rio family explained why they made home page in the section called, "Why a home page." They said they made their home page to keep up with new trend. Second, it is out of internal motive. It is to feel content within themselves. If the first motive is related to the feeling one's existence recognized by others, the second motive is related more with satisfaction within oneself. People need to satisfy themselves and feel good about themselves and continually enjoy doing that. That's why this internal motive includes concepts like self-expression and self-involvement.

I guess concepts like self-expression and self-involvement are necessary for our need to satisfy ourselves. Self-expression is a motive to feel satisfied by expressing one's feeling and thought. I think this motive is exemplified in artistic home page. Also, the fact that one is good at making home page could be a positive reinforcer. In other words, self-expression is also related to the feeling of mastery and completion that is compatible with the idea of self- involvement. In depth about the idea of self- expression, one's motive to express oneself can branch out to many aspects. One's feeling good about being a host of a home page and feeling satisfied by just imagining people click on one's home page could be a way of expressing in a passive way. In a more voluntary way, by expressing one's feeling and thought or even philosophy about society or life, and so on, that reflect one's identity. People may feel good about making home page and continue doing it. Maybe, that's why there's no home page without cause or purpose. While self-expression is more focused on one's emotional aspect, self-involvement is more focused on the process that making of home page involves. Our motive to take control over our boundary is necessary to keep one's activities related to home page. We might be satisfied by the fact that we manage ourselves to control our own creation. And the process involved with taking control over one's bouldary is self-involvement. The process that we go through to feel self-involvement with making home page has two domains. As Dr.James mentioned in a document, I guess, this is where affective and cognitive domain of making home page comes in. I think we go through various levels in making home page. Roughly,in this process, we need to focus on the task and continuously engage ourselves and finally accept the fact that we are involved with making home page. To be exact, in first level we affectively strive for accuracy and have motive to persist and cognitively observe and identify one's problem with making home page. In second level, we affectively feel self-confidence and mastery and cognitively begin to predict how it would work and infer things. And the final level is wherewe affectively feel complete and attracted to the process and also cognitively contextualize and personalize the whole process. Eventually, through this process one feel the sense of self-involvement. In my experience, the fact that I have been through this process gave me strong motive to keep taking control within my boundary or my home page. Simply, the fact that one spent long time and did hard work on the process can make one involved in it so deeply.

As I mentioned earlier, for me, the external cause, which is related to the fact that I'm a part of new world, the cyberspace, plays the most important role to make me so involved in it. In an enlarged sense, I feel this sense of participation in the whole cyberspace as a Netizen. And in a smaller sense, I feel this sense of participation as a member of generation two in Psychology 409 class. I keep working to satisfy this external causes. One thing I noticed in my external cause is that when I first began to get involved with making home page I only thought about the significance of making home page in a small sense as a class member but my view began to expand as I thought about generations of this class. Later, I began to think in an enlarged sense as a member of whole cyberspace and realized my existence in it.

As far as the internal causes are concerned, the self-expression is more important motive for me. Because it's the motive that gave me the most satisfaction. In a small sense, I think my expression could be limited that all the information reflects my knowledge and feeling about Internet as I described in my weekly Internet reports. In that case, it is nothing more than submitting weekly homeworks on the Net. But in a more broad sense, my reports can have more significance than just homeworks on the Net. It can show my philosophy and identity or my cause on the Net by extending my topics and links. For instance, my weekly reports on family focus on Internet can reflect my philosophy about the importance of family and also my cause to make things work better for many parents accessing my home page.

I didn't realize that there's been connections between me and other Netizens until I set my counter. Now, I really feel like I express my philosophy to others, in every information and links I make, and it's the strongest motive that make me keep working on it and get me involved. Some e-mail messages about making links between their home pages and mine make me try to be more expressive so that my work reflects more of me.

As I stated earlier, my motive of self-involvement is strongly involved with the process I have gone through to make my home page. I guess, sense of self-involvement is something that increases with the time you spend for making a home page. The more you spend time with it, the stronger sense of self-involvement you have. I have gone through such a hard time to finally get familiar with making home page as I mentioned in my week3 report. My trouble was related to both affective and cognitive domain. But my trial and error to take control within my boundary never ended. I have gone through hardships but I persisted and achieved the final level in both affective and cognitive domain. Without notice, I affectively began to have a desire to complete each week's tasks and felt attraction, sort of like love and excitement for my work. And cognitively, I evolved myself to make a cognitive map about how things work and used it as a context for every new tasks. Also, I personalized making home page as I expand its topic to personally relevant stuffs like KOREAN cybercommunity.

The first principle I want to advocate is "the principle of existence," I call it. As mentioned above, it is the motive to make people declare their existence to others. It is like just saying, "I'm HERE!" I could find some examples to justify and illustrate this principle. This home page made by a Korean guy at Harvard has no specifc purpose but declaring his existence. Also, I found this page of personal home pages without any specific purpose but to exist.I think not that many of personal home pages share common purpose like this one. The second principle is "the principle of self-expression." This is the one includes all the home pages with specific purposes or functions. My home page can fall under this priciple because it has the purpose to publish my homeworks. This could be the principle that almost 90% of home pages follow, I guess. Many home pages with purpose to express their cause or philosophy about certain things are included. For example, for entertainment purpose MTV created their home page. And with educational purpose, educational on-line source homepage was made. Also this second principle includes many home pages with individual gallery. The self-expression is also deeply related to the principle of beauty which emphasizes creative and entertaining style. Its artistic purpose can be a example of self-expression.

Examples of artistic self-expression are...

Rob's gallery of personal works
Rhea's virtual gallery
David's home page and so on...

The third principle I would advocate is "the principle of self-involvement." This principle has the focus on the process of making home page involves and the control within boundary. The principle of clarity and usefulness, which emphasize the total control with its usefulness and clarity in information, is similar to this principle. Example of this principle could be ones that are made to illustrate the hard work for clear understanding of the content or total control within home page. Examples could be "Ogden's Wild Web Thing," which has so many fascinating stuff like video clip,"Dr.James' Home Page," which has so many information like library, and "Nathan's Home Page," which shows great amount of work included. The forth principle is "the principle of expanding information." The focus of this principle is on live links. Home page without link is a dead information. To do a complete job, a home hage must follow this principle. Example of this principle can be home pages with lots of links like "The Internet Services Directory,""All things automotive directory,"or"AT&T 800 Directories."

These four principles I mentioned seem to cover most of home page architecture and become corner stone for maing home pages.

There are many different aspects in the significance of home page in social-psychological sense. First of all, with ever-changing trend in technological development, human, the social-psychological beings get the most influence in everyday life. I think the most remarkable point about this influence by technology is that there will be more information transfer in every society. Unlike the past, this great amount of information transfer will be influenced by people, I mean, anybody can participate in this change in information transfer. Anyone can be the source, not only the receiver. This means a major change in our social-psychological behaviors. Everyone will become active information source and also seek for more information, and eventually will influence and change the society. Look at the change in today's world of information. With a simple movement of finger tip, you can access any information you want. If you want a better education for yourself, you can virtually visit any educational institutes. Or if you want to know about what's going on this world, you can watch CNN to get updated. If you want to be a better person? You can modify yourself by educating yourself in many self-development home page like "Personal Development Sites." Just imagine that education and self-development is at your finger tip. It means a tremendous change in people's mind and social psychology. Maybe, this means more psychologists to study human in this society of powerful information transfer. In addition, we are witnessing a great change in people's behavior pattern. We can entertain ourselves at home with all those entertain information transferred. Perhaps, no more Friday movie theater, no more record shops would be necessary. it's already happening now with entertain home pages like HBO, SONY, and Disney. Even shopping is not tiring. No more carrying shopping bags. Any products can be delivered to your door by many shopping warehouse home pages like "WWWeb Shopping Directory" and "The Internet Mall."

Second, with the nature of home page being a tool of self-expression, the word, "personal" can have a totally different meaning. Personal cause or personal philosophy of life would be no more personal in cyberspace. For instance, let's say you put a home page with your cause to emphasize the importance of recycling. What does it mean? The Net, itself means more channels to express. Simple act of putting a home page can make a recycling-activist. This simple self-presentation or self-expression can make others perceive you as a totally different person with different identity, and you can have a different self-image that works as a positive reinforcer in your life. Can you see what social-psychological significance this simple self-expression bring to you. It's gonna change your life with different ID. It may end up making you feel like you're doing something for the world, and also can be a significant influence to others. It's happening now. Home pages like "Green Parties of North America" and "The Home Page of Global Recycling Network" are actually promoting their causes and doing something upon their activism. Third, home pages can form different life styles. Different life style means different attitude toward life. I can think of positive examples. If you want to live a different life style, which is more healthy and desirable, you can monitor yourself with the help of many home pages promoting healthy life style. For example, sites like LEARNING STYLES UNLIMITED, THE SIMPLE LIVING NETWORK,and Weight Commander Diet Program encourage you to live with different life style. It's going to change your everydday life and you life style. In social psychological sense, life style means attitude toward life and society. I guess it's our mind that really change the world, as Jung once said, and the better world can be realized by our better attitude toward life and society or by better life style.

Forth, home pages can add a meaning to our family life. As I mentioned in my group report week13 I looked at several family home pages with the purpose to seek their cause. Every family home pages I visited had their family tree, which was obviously out of their cause to remind their root. They seemed to feel proud of their root and used that pride to fulfill their job as an individual and as family. It was like binding family members together. Not to mention the importance of family in social psychology, their cause to focus on family was for nothing but better family life. I assumed that making home page for family would bring a positive revolution among the most important group of people, the family. Additional causes for family home pages are mentioned in my group report week? for your reference.

Fifth, there can be a possible negative influence of home page in social-psychological sense. The first thing that comes up to my mind is related to my only computer-related phobia. (It's little off-the-point but I don't have any computer-related phobia. I almost developed one as shown in my internet report week3 But I both affectively and cognitively reverse the phobia into a positive reinforcer to keep me going with my will to persist and overcome it.) Back to phobia, I know a person who developed me a potential computer-related phobia. He was totally changed after he became a computer maniac. He refused any interpersonal contact and socially isolated himself. I thought that was scary. However, my point is that there can be a possibility of computer-related social-psychological disorders. It would be worthwhile to keep in mind thsi negative aspect when we think about the social-psychological significance of home pages and other computer-related activities.

Finally, as one of the most important roles of home page, we can't miss its significance as a gathering place. It will be a crucial and major access to community and also within community. It's a whole new relationship channel where people virtually interact. Interpersonal interaction of the future will happen here, and interpersonal attraction will have a different dimension. As the interpersonal level of interaction expands people of same interest will have a sense of conformity, and many group process and cooperation will take place in the Net. This also means the conflict and competition among the groups of different interests.

Considering the social-psychological significance of home page, it's never too exaggerated to say that the harmony and conflict in society will be decided by the relationship among many cybercommunities. And, social-psychological significance of home page is so important for society in now and future that it should be considered in various aspects. Thank you for reading this final(really final) paper of undergraduate years(of expanding mind).

Mr.Cho

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