Cyberpsychology

By: M. Pedram

When I took my first psych (Psychology) classes at my recent college years, I was enjoying learning the traditional and general psych terms, topics and subjects. After a while however, I found myself enjoying studies in two fields: I/O (Industrial and Organizational psychology) and Psychology of Women. I don’t have a specific reason to tell, but two impacts: my first obligated choice (Mechanical engineering major– my dad’s favorite choice as a typical Iranian father major-selection), the second was the region where I was coming from (A region where usually women have been treated as a second citizen).

However, due to my second graduated major, Computer Information Systems, I noticed I/O psychology does not have all answers to many technical psych issues. I found it a bit off-line. Very soon, I started my individual research and studies on my unknown interest to the human mind and information technology in the context of human- interaction, which now is known Cyberpsychology.

This brand new field of psychology includes all psychological and scientific facts that are associated with the advanced level of technology or Cyber psychology. In fact, interaction between people (users) and computers take place at the surface of computer-screen or interface. To define Cyber more correctly, it comes from the word cybernetics, the study of the operation of control and communication; psychology is the study of the mind and behavior.

To understand the current modern lifestyles of us, the importance of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research within the field of cyber psychology will become more visible and necessary. With the rising number of Internet and computer users, it is obvious that computer technology's effects on the human psych and it will continue to shape our interactions with each other. The following definition is given by the Association for Computing Machinery: "Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them."

In other words, “human-computer interaction studies draw from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human side. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages, and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and human performance are relevant.” Michael Fenichel, Ph.D.

However, mainstream research studies seem to focus on the impact of the Internet and cyberspace (the global domain of electro-magnetic accessed through electronic technology and exploited through the modulation of electromagnetic energy) and on the psychology of individuals and groups. Reflecting the challenges and complexities of daily life, psychology has come to focus on modern-day issues, such as teen violence, multi-task learning, and "online addictions", in addition to the timeless concerns of all people such as relationships, group processes, depression and cognition.