Prototype of a Person

Cyberpsychology Digest Volume 1

I’m constantly coming across academic journal articles, news stories and blog articles that are directly related to Cyberpsychology that are incredibly interesting, controversial, questionable and are often a source of inner debate. Therefore, I’ve decided to start sharing them here in the hopes of highlighting the importance of applying psychological research and theory to various technology related fields. I’m planning on making this a monthly post and if anyone has anything they’d like to contribute, or even related articles, feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail.

Cyberpsychology Digest Volume 1

Can Grand Theft Auto improve social skills?: Some media attention was given to this story and at first I was quite skeptical, that was of course until I read the original article on the University of Sunderland website. Chris Whitehead, the final year Psychology student, points out how previous research has focused on the adverse effects of violent video games on children, when such games are actually targeted towards adults and can have positive effects upon their intended audience. Related article: Link between online gaming and violence killed off

Early Sexual Experiences: The Role of Internet Access and Sexually Explicit Material: This study reports that participants who had access to the Internet during the ages of 12 and 17 reported engaging in sexual intercourse at a younger age than those that did not have Internet access.

Mobile Phones are more important than Wallets and Keys: Nortel have conducted some extensive survey based research into global uses of communications technologies. The most interesting information derived from this is how survey respondents indicated that the one item they would choose to bring with them when leaving the house for 24 hours or more would be their mobile phone, choosing their mobile phone over their wallet or keys.

Exploring the Role of the Reader in the Activity of Blogging: Most research on the topic of blogging has focused on sociability (i.e. the blogosphere). This study investigated the behaviour of blog readers, discovering that blog reading often becomes similar to e-mail checking – i.e. less content orientated and habitual. Also of note is the conclusion that readers put pressure on themselves to produce worthwhile comments. An interesting study, however, a small criticism - the majority of participants were also blog writers, would be far more interesting to see this study applied to non bloggers. Related article: Are You Educating Your Readers About Blogging?

Being Human: Human Computer Interaction in the Year 2020: Findings from a HCI conference hosted by Microsoft which gives recommendations for the future of HCI to ensure that human values inform future development. For example, educating young people on the impact of technological advances and recognising the importance of specialists from other disciplines (e.g. psychology, sociology, arts) whom can offer more insightful perspectives. The report also argues for the need of proper monitoring and assessment to ensure that we individually and collectively stay in control of ourselves and the world around us. Related article: In a User Centric Web I get to control my data

If anyone has anything they’d like to contribute to the next digest, or related articles for this volume, feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail - Sinéad.

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

Cyberpsychology Thesis on Irish Blogging

At the start of March I seemed pretty intent on beginning an ambitious post graduate research paper on trust formation online. Since then I have done extensive research into the topic and had to narrow down my research area, this is of course due to time/resource constraints (and the discovery of a very similar study published just recently).

Whilst researching trust online, I was quite drawn to all of the research on blogs and weblogs. The deeper I researched it on an international level (looking at American, Japanese and European literature) the more I realised how interesting it was that as a nation we have not embraced it. Especially considering the overwhelming statistics: In 2007 it was estimated that there were between 50 and 85 million blogs and at their current rate of growth, by 2010 there will be over 500 million blogs. Yet, it has been estimated that there are only about 3,000 or 4,000 Irish bloggers, in comparison to the 12 million bloggers in American or the 8 million bloggers in Japan. Even in the IT industry in Ireland, there is a severe lack of business blogging, despite the obvious benefits.

However, recent statistics published by Amárach claims that almost one in five Irish Internet users have started or contributed to a blog in the past year and if you look at the Alexa.com rankings, Blogger.com is the 10th most visited site by Irish Internet Users. Are there thousands more Irish bloggers out there? That are just unconnected to the blogosphere. Research has shown that some blogs are simply more connected to a blogosphere than others, with some not being connected at all. Or are Irish Internet Users bigger readers than writers? Research has shown that people are less likely to pay attention to a medium perceived as not being credible, and according to some reports trust in blogging in on the decrease (in Ireland) yet other reports show that the majority of Irish Internet users trust consumer opinions posted online.

There is a lot of conflicting data out there. So, naturally I’m fascinated.

I’ll be surveying Irish Internet Users (specifically bloggers and blog readers) to investigate their attitudes, perceptions and motivations, and comparing the results to existing international research. In order to interpret these results, I will also be applying existing social psychology, computer mediated communications and human computer interaction literature.

I’ll also be looking into issues of credibility, liability and the business implications (both positive and negative).

Any thoughts?

Cyberpsychology Thesis

I’m in the early stages of writing my second thesis. My first one, for my undergrad studies in Psychology Applied to I.T was based on online advertising, was only about 5,000+ words and I had about 80 participants in my experiments.

This one will be three times the size, it will weigh in at about 10,000 - 15,000 words and I’ll be needing about 1,000 volunteers to fill out multiple online surveys for me (this step won’t commence until at least September). So wish me luck! Below are some of the aims I have developed, they form the basis for my upcoming research.

Aims:

1. To investigate the immediate and initial factors that influence the perception of credibility and trust online, in regards to non-commercial websites and blogs.
2. To explore and evaluate cues of trustworthiness online.
3. To investigate trust-inducing interface design features and tools employed by non-commercial web designers, blogging platforms and blog writers, and examine their effectiveness.
4. To examine online trust formation from a user’s perspective, including brand awareness and social experiences.

Though there is a lot of research with regard to the topic of trustworthiness online, almost all of this research focuses solely on e-commerce (eBay, Amazon etc.,) and does not delve into information exchange. Recently Wikipedia and Blogging has come under scrutiny by the traditional media for an apparent misrepresentation for information. However, this has in no way effected the popularity of these mediums. What I want to know is - why? Why do people trust certain websites and blogs but not others?

The next stage is to develop sets of hypothesis, which I’ve begun to do and have quite a few so far. I’m very much looking forward to getting feedback on my initial ideas from the college, I may have to alter the above aims as time progresses. If anyone would like to contribute some feedback or direct me towards any existing research, articles etc., please do.

If anyone else, like myself, is currently in the process of doing research into existing literature, online, let me suggest a wonderful tool called Zotero. It’s a file management system that works in conjunction with Firefox to help you sort, tag, reference, etc., research papers from sites such as Google Scholar.