Cyber ​​psychology

The Cyber Psychology (also Internet psychology , computer psychology or Webpsychologie ) is a branch of media psychology and focuses on the psychological behavior and processes in a digital world , especially with the Internet . A sub-item is computer game psychology, which deals with the psychological processes and effects of computer games.

Subject areas

• Identity and personality development (for example building an alter ego and switching between a person on the Internet and a person in real life , anonymity on the Internet , the declaration of privacy, social comparisons with others, self-portrayal and staging, e-participation or building self-confidence or self-doubt by using the internet)
• Effects on cognitive abilities, such as intelligence , receptiveness , memory or the ability to learn (e.g. through the use and influence of computer games )

• Social behavior and communication behavior in social networks , forums , chats , online dating services and virtual worlds (eg. As the behavior of individual players and Internet users such as from trolls or griefers in a group, causes and effects of cyberbullying , kollobratives work / Collective Intelligence / Connectivism and individual network culture phenomena, etc.)
• biological, personal, cultural and social backgrounds in the behavior of individual individuals
• Developmental psychological processes when using digital offers (see also Internet education )
• Dealing with information ( information management ) and multimedia and the effect thereof (e.g. the meaning and handling of data , free content and freedom of information , web videos and filter bubbles or critical content e.g. in the darknet )
• Usage behavior , perception , motives and emotions for individual offers and services (e.g. patterns for assigning passwords, buying behavior in online shops, sensitivity to Internet advertising , learning behavior, reaction time , etc.) and influencing these, e.g. B. by adapting the user experience / user interface , social engineering or the design of e-commerce offers and online marketing z. B. through e-pricing
• the development of internet affinity ( e.g. when creating user-generated content or the causes of a digital divide ) and the development of general skills (e.g. through conditioning in computer games, e-learning systems or website reward systems )
• Illnesses, behavioral problems and addictive behavior through the use of digital media (e.g. internet addiction , FOMO , technostress , social isolation, escapism , loneliness , changed eating and / or sleeping behavior or depression )
• the treatment of diseases and behavioral problems using digital media ( e-mental health , virtual rehabilitation , internet pastoral care )
• Behavior and working with the Internet of Things and smart systems
• psychological behavior and effects of virtual reality and augmented reality , in particular with immersion
• Carrying out web experiments and evaluations of psychologically relevant big data results and applications of web mining techniques for statistics and analyzes etc. in the field of experimental psychology
• Criteria for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and the Psychological Consequences

history

The term was first dated by KL Norman in 1973 when the first graphical user interface was unveiled at the research center in Palo Alto . The environmental psychology was from there to the world of cyberspace extended.

literature

• Catarina Katzer: Cyber ​​Psychology: Life on the Net: How the Internet Changes Us
• Antje Flade: Third Places - real islands in the virtual world: Excursions into cyber psychology
• The Cyber ​​Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online by Mary Aiken, PhD (2016) Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 978-0-8129-9785-9
• Cyberpsychology: An Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction by Kent Norman (2008) Cambridge University of Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68702-7
• Wallace, PM (1998). The Psychology of the Internet . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79709-2
• Whittle, DB (1997). Cyberspace: The human dimension . New York: WH Freeman. ISBN 978-0-7167-8311-4

Web links

• Cyber psychology in the psychology lexicon
• Journal of Computer Mediated Communication
• Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace
• Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Antje Flade: Third Places - real islands in the virtual world: Excursions into cyber psychology . Springer, 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-09687-8 , pp. 45 .