Cyberpsychology or Other?

[Alexander E. Voiskounsky]

Hello all,

I’d like to know your view: how will be named – in a decade or two – the field many of us are in?

Do you expect/predict it will be named:

Cyberpsychology?

Internet Psychology?

Other?  (what is your suggestion?)

[Michael Fenichel]

I hope, after 15 years of watching and participating [ see: http://www.cyberpsychology.com ] there will be some meaning to "Cyberpsychology", which I define generally as the intersection between human experience (psychology) and our relationship (conscious/intentional (or not) with technology. From normal daily life in the 21st Century to applications such as VR-based therapies, social and professional networking, communication and information access, medicine, health, and pure entertainment.

 

I don't know if "cyberpsychology" as such will remain a specific and broad focus. I see this interest area as a subset of psychology, but perhaps that comes from a life as a clinical psychologist. :-)  The Digital Divide is both more and less "divisive" and there will be no more generations which are not touched by the Internet Revolution.

 

So I find "cyberpsychology" a useful concept for one specific area of psychology, among psychologists anyway, and I suppose there is also a "Cyber-sociology" and "Cyber-cultural anthropology". We who spend much time with computers are living increasingly "cyber" lives, with or without a label.  

 

"Internet psychology" is (for me) another subset of psychology, but specific to the (large) role of the Internet in our daily lives - from social & professional networks to YouTubing and gaming, marketing, researching, and increasingly finding or offering health/mental health related information and services. A robot vacuum cleaner is more likely a part of "Cyberpsychology" than "Internet Psychology". To me the Internet is wires, but is based on human interaction, whereas with technology in general, people may benefit (from an automatic coffee machine, say) but it is not a deep psychological impact at this point in our history!

 

Suggestions? Let us encourage continued research, exploration, and application of tools we make and can use.

:-)

 

Did I answer?  Many more thoughts and articles on this topic are on the page I have made specific to this topic.

 

Best regards, 

Michael

www.cyberpsychology.com

[Andrea Gaggioli]

this is really a challenging question. I assume that Cyberpsychology will continue to exist as umbrella term, but the field will expand in several ramifications which will take an autonomous definition. Personally, I think that the concept of Cyberpsychology is still broader than Internet Psychology. As Michael correctly pointed out, the term Internet Psychology does not cover fields such as robot-human interaction or virtual reality. An emerging area which might be of interest to Cyberpsychology is the so-called "human-computer confluence". You can find some more info about this here:

 

http://hcsquared.eu/

 

By the way: I opened a professional forum on Linkedin called "Science 2.0". It features more than 260 professionals and growing. It is all about the application of social media to scientific research. If you are interested join us at:

 

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Science-20-1032577?mostPopular=&...

 

andrea

 

[Reid Cornwell]

What technologies are included in the "cyber" domain?

Is there some behavior which is unique, within the "cyber" domain, that can't be attributed to the limitations (boundaries) of the technology?