cyberpsycho

rules:

1. do not add your own opinions nor acknowledge personal experience into the thread in anyway.

2. all posts must be relevent -- pertain to cyberpsychology or the effects of internet use on real lives -- quotes from online sources (reputability is recommended, though not required, as strange/new theories may be interesting)

3. please try to use different sources than used by others

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The Solipsistic Introjection Effect

Absent f2f cues combined with text communication can have an interesting effect on people. Sometimes they feel that their mind has merged with the mind of the online companion. Reading another person's message might be experienced as a voice within one's head, as if that person magically has been inserted or "introjected" into one's psyche. Of course, we may not know what the other person's voice actually sounds like, so in our head we assign a voice to that companion. In fact, consciously or unconsciously, we may even assign a visual image to what we think that person looks like and how that person behaves. The online companion now becomes a character within our intrapsychic world, a character that is shaped partly by how the person actually presents him or herself via text communication, but also by our expectations, wishes, and needs. Because the person may even remind us of other people we know, we fill in the image of that character with memories of those other acquaintances.

As the character now becomes more elaborate and "real" within our minds, we may start to think, perhaps without being fully aware of it, that the typed-text conversation is all taking place within our heads, as if it's a dialogue between us and this character in our imagination - even as if we are authors typing out a play or a novel. Actually, even when it doesn't involve online relationships, many people carry on these kinds of conversations in their imagination throughout the day. People fantasize about flirting, arguing with a boss, or very honestly confronting a friend about what they feel. In their imagination, where it's safe, people feel free to say and do all sorts of things that they wouldn't in reality. At that moment, reality IS one's imagination. Online text communication can become the psychological tapestry in which a person's mind weaves these fantasy role plays, usually unconsciously and with considerable disinhibition. All of cyberspace is a stage and we are merely players.

When reading another's message, it's also possible that you "hear" that person's words using your own voice. We may be subvocalizing as we read, thereby projecting the sound of our voice into the other person's message. Perhaps unconsciously, it feels as if I am talking to/with myself. When we talk to ourselves, we are willing to say all sorts of things that we wouldn't say to others.

[moel]

in e-mail and message boards, communication is asynchronous. people don't interact with each other in real time. others may take minutes, hours, days, or even months to reply to something you say. not having to deal with someone's immediate reaction can be disinhibiting. In real life, it would be like saying something to someone, magically suspending time before that person can reply, and then returning to the conversation when you're willing and able to hear the response. Immediate, real-time feedback from others tends to have a very powerful effect on the ongoing flow of how much people reveal about themselves. in e-mail and message boards, where there are delays in that feedback, people's train of thought may progress more steadily and quickly towards deeper expressions of what they are thinking and feeling. some people may even experience asynchronous communication as "running away" after posting a message that is personal, emotional, or hostile. it feels safe putting it "out there" where it can be left behind. in some cases, as kali munro, an online psychotherapist, aptly describes it, the person may be participating in an "emotional hit and run."

Level of Conscious Awareness and Control

How we decide to present ourselves in cyberspace isn't always a purely conscious choice. Some aspects of identity are hidden below the surface. Covert wishes and inclinations leak out in roundabout or disguised ways without our even knowing it. We're not always aware of how we dissociate parts of our identity or even of the emotional valence we attach to them. A person selects a username or avatar on a whim, because it appeals to him, without fully understanding the deeper symbolic meanings of that choice. Or she joins an online group because it seems interesting while failing to realize the motives concealed in that decision. The anonymity, fantasy, and numerous variety of online environments give ample opportunity for this expression of unconscious needs and emotions. One good example is "transference."

People vary greatly in the degree to which they are consciously aware of and control their identity in cyberspace. For example, some people who role play imaginary characters report how the characters may take on a life of their own. They temporarily have surrendered their normal identity to the imaginary persona, perhaps later understanding the meaning of this transformation. Those who are acting out their underlying negative impulses - like the typical "snert" - usually have little insight into why they do so. By contrast, attempts to work through conflicted aspects of identity necessarily entails a conscious grappling with the unconscious elements of one's personality. Striving in cyberspace to be a "better" person also requires at least some conscious awareness - a premeditated vision of where one is headed. Some people, on their own, make a fully intentional choice about who they want to be in cyberspace. Some are partially aware of their choice and with help or through experience become more aware. Others resist any self-insight at all. They live under the illusion that they are in control of themselves.

Humanity, at the beginning of the third millennium of modern civilization, has, as a side effect of some of its technological achievements, brought the biosphere to the verge of catastrophic population dysfunction and environmental pollution conditions. At the same time, parallel technological developments are responsible for integrating people with machines, especially information machines -- the "cyborgization" of society -- and linking people around the world in a global communications net. The indiscriminate integration of people with machines brings with it a catalogue of increasingly negative psychological side-effects; anxiety, depression, hopelessness, cynicism, alienation, physical end emotional abuse, murder and suicide. When these psychological effects become wide spread in society they lead to wide spread violence, ethnic persecution and "cleansing," terrorism, genocide and finally, ecocide; the daunting consequences of surrender to the cybernetic -- self guided -- machines On the other hand, those very machines could be utilized, in fact are essential--given emotionally literate use--in the redemption of a sustainable, humane future.

[Coffee]

Do your own fvcking homework

Originally posted by Coffee
Do your own fvcking homework

sorry, trying to fight the mawkish glib with content

edit to add: see rule #1

[trisherina]

Is a blog just a therapist that never tells you when the hour is up?

I wonder

"But you know that Jackie. She loves her cheese. "

The strange punctuation at the end is an emoticon. Its intention is to convey an emotion that the writer, with her absence of writing skills, couldn't. Apparently, you're supposed to tilt your head sideways to gather that the writer is winking at you, recalling the sly inside joke involving Jackie and cheese.

Now, I'll be the first to claim that e-mail is a stunted medium - even more so than the telephone, since you not only lose the subtle nuances of facial expression, but the tone of voice. However, e-mail's greatest advantage is the way it combines the thoughtfulness of letter-writing with the disposability of phone calls. And for Heaven's sake, the art of letter-writing has been around for centuries! Do we see a wacky %} in Mozart's letters to his father? Does Saint Paul insert a zany 8*> in his Epistle to the Romans?

Let's face it: emoticons are the digital equivalent of teenage girls who dot their i's with hearts and flowers. They're for people who like Garfield. They're a step away from posters of a cat hanging from a branch with the caption, "Hang In There!"

Emoticons have spawned a whole breed of digital cute-isms. The ubiquitous -g- , standing for "grin," serves the same purpose as . My God, have we lost our writing skills so completely that we are unable to convey humor without pointing it out as blatantly as an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos"?

Then there are the acronyms: LOL for "laughing out loud," ROFL for "rolling on the floor laughing," and LMAO for "laughing my ass off." It troubles me that the Net is chock-full of such endless merriment and mirth. Why aren't there acronyms such as PMO for "pissed me off," FBM for "foul bitter mood," or MDT for "manic-depressive time"? Why is everyone so friggin' happy?

All these things, however, serve a more important purpose, and that is to give us even more jargon to prove we're part of the third-wave digerati club. Newbies have no clue why we're writing and ;] at the end of our sentences, and that's how we show them we know more than they do.

We know how to write, dammit, and we should be proud of it.

[Audreyvgs]

Pfft. Psych major.

[trisherina]

What are the major processes of change at work in modern English?


1. Blurring of the class structure

* Partly as a result of the common experience of war, when men were valued for their character and deeds rather than their social class, when officers and men shared a trench, and women found themselves working for the war effort in jobs previously closed to them (and again in World War II) rigid class boundaries were broken down.
* With this came a gradual decline in the notion of deference - where "one's elders and betters" were respected, the century has seen a greater respect for individuality, whether in the guise of "the self made man" or "the proud working man".
* Language is one way of making class boundaries clear and a diction which is less rigidly adhered to by the landed gentry, the rise of the middle classes to bridge the great divide between the upper class and the working class all meant that there was greater contact in less formal settings between social groups and a less rigidly marked division between them. The proportion of the population categorised as upper class at the end of the 20th century is a small fraction of the proportion at the beginning. The proportion of the population speaking Received Pronunciation (RP) is now no more than 3% of the population.
* At the end of the twentieth century there is a greater tolerance of a regional accent in areas where it would earlier have been a social stigma.

2. Education

* Some of the above can be the result of a broadening availability of education for all. Near-universal literacy, increasing tolerance brought about by state education and latterly comprehensive schooling which has brought all social classes together, has brought about a greater understanding of the people behind the accent. While this is not universally true, where the wealthy upper classes and newly wealthy aspiring "Yuppies" may still send their children to exclusive schools, the vast majority of the population is familiar with people from all social classes - and the divisions between social classes are less clear.
* University education is also much more accessible and (not withstanding recent government decisions on the virtual abolition of grants for students) the proportion of the population attending university has risen from about 4% in the 1920s and 30s, to 10% in the late 1960's, 23% in 1991/2 to 34% in 1997/8, with many more in other forms of further education. With universities less élitist the scope for being in contact with a wider social spectrum uttering a wider range of accents and registers is obvious.
* Education also brings with it understanding and information, both political and social.
* Partly as a result of this, society has become more tolerant of a wider variety of pronunciations and speech choices.

3. Introduction of public broadcasting

* In 1922 Lord Reith, as head of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), set out to provide on "the wireless" an example of clear expression, high values and a model of "correct" speech. Everything was scripted and today early broadcasts sound stilted formal and unnatural. They did however exemplify a high standard of correctness - to which listeners should aspire.
* In due course that same organisation was to provide examples of local regional speech which was new to a population which had rarely travelled far from home.
* The introduction of television, mainly following the Coronation of 1953, further exposed British viewers to a wide range of regional and foreign accents. Although it still upheld certain values (and was widely known as "Auntie" during the 1960s because of its rather patronising tone,) it was also a vehicle for radical attitudes towards sex, humour and social change as film makers used it as a popular medium.

4. Proliferation of film and video

* From 1927 film acquired sound - the Talkies. The cinema was a mass public entertainment and for the first time English viewers could hear American accents - and at first these were difficult to understand. America became fashionable and US speech was one of the features much imitated by some, tolerated by others. Even when tolerated it meant that there was less social stigma in the short "a" in dance and laugh as spoken in the north of England; the long "a" of the south-east "darnce" and "larf" was no longer so exclusive.
* American influence on the English language is significant but has been exaggerated - often by those who disapprove of change and who are ready to "blame" the US for changes which they perceive as a "decline" of standards. Often in fact such changes originated in English but from an earlier age.

5. Popular Youth Culture

* Teenagers did not exist until the late 1950's. This may be a surprise for young people of the 1990's, but an earlier generation moved seamlessly from childhood to adulthood, often leaving school at 14 and straight into a trade as an apprentice without further formal education. The relative prosperity of the post-war years, the sudden rise in births known as the "baby boom," popular music focused on young people and growing commercialism produced an affluent generation who left full time education later and had more leisure and more spending power. The baby boom generation had an influence greater than any generation of young people before it. With pop music as its focus, spoken language frequently reflected the language of song lyrics and the musicians and performers who produced it. Regional accents, notably the accent of Liverpool following the Beatles in the 1960s, became not simply acceptable but actively fashionable and an anti-authoritarian stance in both behaviour and language encouraged considerable change.
* Teenagers are more open to change and to fashion than people over 30 and their choices at an early age influence their life styles for the rest of their lives. A decision at the age of 16 whether to adopt a regional accent or maintain an existing accent is likely to determine a speaker's way of speaking for the rest of their lives. Teenagers also tend to be less formal than their elders and this has helped bring about a decline in formality of speech generally. While older speakers often decry this, seeing it as a decline in standards, as "sloppy" speech and a lack of precision, younger people see this as a more comfortable and appropriate form of speech associated with an informal relaxed life style. The use of the word "like" to punctuate speech is very evident "He was like really laid back, y'know?"

6. Decline of rural dialect and the rise in urbanisation

* The move from the country and into the cities which has accompanied industrialisation is associated with a shift in the perception of dialects. Urbanisation has meant the decline of the extended family as different members move away to follow available work and a consequent decline in dialect where a rural accent is perceived as of low status - the country bumpkin.

7. Global communications

The 20th century has seen the introduction of communications system which can instantly connect people throughout the world. Starting with the telegraph in the nineteenth century, through the telephone (note that "tele" means "far" in Greek), wireless, television and Internet, the increasing ease of communicating across thousands of miles means that language varieties are created to cope with new kinds of discourse and conveyed rapidly to all users worldwide.

A study of e-mail shows that it is usually informal tenor (often with Americanisms), limited in its typography to the symbols on a standard keyboard, uses "emoticons" (symbols such as :-) ) to convey irony and to replace facial expression, is tolerant of spelling errors, welcomes the copying (cut and paste) of the previous writer's words and leads to a continuing thread of conversation where each speaker's words are marked by a number of signs. E-mail is a distinct language domain with its own rules, vocabulary and advantages.

That this communications medium and this language have been created largely since the explosion of the World Wide Web in 1994 is a remarkable example of the ability of a language variety to be created, adopted and to infiltrate the whole community (including non-users of e-mail and the Internet) in a matter of a few years. In 1995 the BBC news referred to "The Internet, the world-wide network of computers" but by 1999 it has become "The Internet" or even "The Net." "E-commerce" had become a frequent term in the national newspapers, showing that "e-mail" was understood by most readers. By 1999 many regular users were saying "I'll mail you" meaning e-mail but using the truncated version as in the US. "Post" is still mainly used for traditional postal services in the UK.

The psychoanalytic concept of "transference" is especially important for understanding online relationships. Because the experience of the other person often is limited to text, there is a tendency for the user to project a variety of wishes, fantasies, and fears onto the ambiguous figure at the other end of cyberspace. The "blending" of one's mind with the other, as some users describe the experience of relating in cyberspace, may reflect this transference process. In fact, some users describe this blending of mind with the computer itself. Transference to the computer and to other users may interact in very subtle, complex ways. As one avid cybernaut once told me, "wherever I go on the internet, I discover myself."

Unconscious motivations related to the transference will also affect the "filtering" process that determines the choices the user makes in establishing relationships. Users may be surprised to find that the close friends they make online all seem to be the same types of people, even though this was not immediately obvious at the start of the relationship. This unconscious "homing" device can be very sensitive. Even when communicating only via text and in cumbersome or distracting online environments, we nevertheless zoom in on relationships that touch some hidden need within us.

[trisherina]

The origin of LOL