The Psychology of Cyberspace

The Psychology of Cyberspace is a course taught by John Suler in the Department of Psychology at the Science and Technology Center at Rider University. The website is a collection of a large number of thought-provoking essays on various aspects of human behavior online:

This hypertext book explores the psychological aspects of environments created by computers and online networks. It presents an evolving conceptual framework for understanding how people react to and behave within cyberspace: what I call "the psychology of cyberspace" - or simply "cyberpsychology." Continually being revised and expanded, this hypertext book originally was created in January of 1996. See the article index which indicates the articles most recently added and revised.

In order to make these readings accessible to as many people as possible, I have written them in a style that is not overly abstract or technical. Important concepts in psychology and psychoanalytic theory appear throughout the book, but I try to present them in an "experience-near" rather than "experience-distant" way that I hope makes them useful in understanding everyday living in cyberspace. The emphasis is on practical concepts rather than purely academic ones. Other versions of these articles appear in various professional journals. These publications are indicated within the articles and in the article index.

The course/website also has a blog which, though not updated lately, contains some gems in the archives. Worth reading and bookmarking - all of it.

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Oh I would for sure take this class. That sounds right up my alley. Kinda makes me want to go to grad school.

I remember reading some early psychology writings about the internet and I wonder is this a continuation of the same.

Things have certainly changed since the days of QLink, AOL, Compuserve, et al... but then, I must say that some things have not changed at all, ie., the moron element :-)