Date: Mon, 20 Feb 95 08:42:55 -0500
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From: "Storm A. King" <stormk@netcom.com>
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Subject: Cyber Psychology (fwd)
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The Psychology of Cyberspace
a short essay by Storm A. King    

"there is no there there"  author unknown
Cyberspace. 
The space between our terminals?  Or a place in our minds?  Definition
for (and debates about these definitions) of virtuality, cybermind, or 
virtual anything abound and conflict and occasionally coalesce.  Through 
cyberspace.  What was once strictly the domain of computer nerds and 
hackers or scientist and researchers is now increasingly occupied by 
middle class America.  The field of the study of computer mediated 
communications started as research in to how people connected by compute
could become more productive and increase profitability by cooperation. 
Now, it is shifting to look at the sociological implications of a new 
phase in the information revolution.  A phase that has millions o
ordinary citizens of the world reaching out to touch someone, keyboard to 
keyboard.  Interpersonal interactivity, on a scale un-imagined only a few 
short years ago.   Information  is no longer constrained by the 
traditional mass media.  This new "from many to many" paradigm of 
information exchange has permanently supplemented our reliance on a few 
centralized organizations to assemble, edit and disseminate to us 
information about others actions and ideas.

"No man is an island"  Aldous Huxle
"He is a peninsula" The Jefferson Airplane

Psychology.  
What we think and how we act and the relationships between the two. Our 
thoughts influence our behavior, our behavior influences our thoughts.  
Either way, the opportunity to know what other individuals are thinking, 
and to share ones own thoughts far and wide, has never been at a highe
level.  The implications are astounding.  Just how this new 
interconnectivity, where geographic constraints are abolished, will 
influence individual and social behavior is unclear, but we know it 
will.  The signs are everywhere.  Each day brings new stories about th
transformational power of cyberspace participation.  Minority groups have 
become empowered, social movements have organized, and some third world 
countries have leapfrogged over decades to connect indigenous peoples 
through telecommunities.  The ability to influence other peoples actions
based on their having read ideas broadcast world wide by individuals wit
access and motive, is a new, dramatic addition to the psychology of 
social change.
"God does not play at dice with the Universe" Albert Einstein
"He plays cards with it, and our connections to each other are about to 
be shuffled" me

The social psychology of cyberspaces. 
I pay attention to you, you pay attention to me, and a social 
relationship forms.  Cybernauts have only each others ideas to pay 
attention to, words on a screen, devoid of tone and inflection.  Most 
cyberspaces start by a surrounding of an idea by people that want to 
discuss it.  Yet our need for affiliation transcends the intellectual 
nature of the medium, and emotional connections are made.  In fact, 
people fall in love, and fight, faster when not inhibited by possible 
local repercussions.  The imagination fills in what the senses do not 
report.  The meeting, the social space, is of one mind to another.  The 
medium is the written word.  Both are being transformed in the process
Much to the cha<g> of many in power today, the anarchy of the Internet is 
establishing new precedents for the importance of taking individual 
responsibility for harmonious social relationships, rather than assuming 
order will be imposed by an external authority.
"I think, therefore I am" Descartes
"I am he as you are me as we are all together" The Beatles

Multiple identities, multiple cyberspaces.  
Public typing, like public speaking, is not every one's cup of tea.  
Levels of involvement in cyberspaces varies according to the individuals 
inclination for immersion and interactivity.  Many choose a read only 
mode, content to examine the thoughts of others and reflect on them in 
silence.  Others contribute no matter what, or self disclose all over the 
place.  Regardless of this choice, very few are single list, single space 
participants.  It could be real time chat, bullitine boards, email lists 
or all three, but the role one plays is subtly different in each new 
forum.  Expertise on the stated subject can be a commodity exchanged for 
recognition in one cyberspace. Questions posed to experts in another 
space gain new knowledge, for the same individual.  Just as our behavior 
is different in real life when in church, at school, or spending a
evening in a jazz bar, so to does the level of and content of discourse 
vary across cyberspaces.  The difference is the range possible and the 
juxtaposition in time of roles played.  From one minute to the next, one 
can redefine ones self according to the community standards of that 
cyberspace.  One can be associating with the highest highbrow 
intellectual discussion of theories of philosophy, and then, with a few 
key strokes, change to being an active member of a truckers for peace 
social movement.

"We are what we pretend to be" Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of 
magic." Arthur C. Clarke

The psychology of what is coming.
In the near future, I will get up in the morning and my trusty 
intelligent agent will inform me to dress warm, cause it will rain today, 
and not to take I-5 to work because it is backed up.  I will probabl
tell it thank you.  Future generations will not need to know what kind of 
gopher searches or web worms were used to acquire information, they ca
just ask Bob to go get it.  The boundaries between what is private and 
what is public knowledge are becoming blurred.  As more and more people 
discover the power of being connected to their peers, no matter how 
esoteric their interests, they increasingly start to look for social 
contact and information first from cyberspace, and secondarily from othe
means.  Just getting by in today's world means making many informed 
decisions.  Tomorrow's world will be even worse.  Assistance fro
artificial intelligence is on it's way.  There will be a shift in the wa
people perceive their interaction with each other, and with the machines 
that allow that interaction.  The information here flows horizontally, 
and power, status and even self esteem can be derived from new and 
different sources.   How to win friends and influence people in 
cyberspace is dependent on knowing the differences involved between the 
new order and the old.  Many more social interactions are possible, fo
there a reversal of a fundamental social norm occurs here.  Talking to 
strangers on the street can be problematic.  Talking to strangers in 
cyberspace is not only encouraged, it is highly rewarding and very much 
reinforced.  The downsides must be understood as well.  Social 
interactions in cyberspaces are fraught with misunderstandings and are 
often much more brief that those in real life.  Future generations will 
grow up used to such alternative environments where such different rules 
apply, and will thrive on the mixing of cyber and real life interactions.

The ideas in this essay were influence by ones I found floating around 
cyberspace, most notably those of Howard Rheingold, John Coate, and Jay 
Weston 
Copywrite 1995 by
Storm A. King      Mountain View, California      stormk@netcom.com
   The information revolution rolls on, don't let it roll over you :-)

--
"Storm A. King" <stormk@netcom.com> -- hod