The Psychology of Cyberspace by John Suler, Ph.D. - Online Continuing Education Articles

Essential Issues in Cyberpsychology: Comprehensive Overview

1. Basic Psychological Features of Cyberspace
2. Disinhibition, Transference, and Personality Types
3. Identity Management and the Integration Principle
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1. Basic Psychological Features of Cyberspace


With the advance of computers and online networks - especially the internet - a new dimension of human experience is rapidly opening up. The term "cyberspace" has been mentioned so often that it may at this point seem trite and overly commercialized. However, the experience created by computers and computer networks can in many ways be understood as a psychological "space." When they power up their computers, launch a program, write e-mail, or log on to their online service, users often feel - consciously or subconsciously - that they are entering a "place" or "space" that is filled with a wide array of meanings and purposes. Many users who have telneted to a remote computer or explored World Wide Web will describe the experience as "traveling" or "going someplace." Spatial metaphors - such as "worlds," "domains," or "rooms" are common in articulating online activities.

On an even deeper psychological level, users often describe how their computer is an extension of their mind and personality - a "space" that reflects their tastes, attitudes, and interests. In psychoanalytic terms, computers and cyberspace may become a type of "transitional space" that is an extension of the individual's intrapsychic world. It may be experienced as an intermediate zone between self and other that is part self and part other. As they read on their screen the e-mail, newsgroup, or chat message written by an internet comrade, some people feel as if their mind is merged or blended with that of the other. In their April Fools prank, "Tidal Wave Communications" introduced a new computer accessory called "Orecchio" - a headset, using Telepathic Internet Data Exchange (TIDE) protocol, that enhances e-mail functionality by enabling you "to send your most important thoughts directly from their source: your mind."

"Imagine no more keyboards and achy hands. No more eye strain from the glare of the screen. Just visualize the message you want to send, followed by your send command, and poof! Your email is transmitted to our network for quick delivery to its destination."

Truth comes out in jest.

When one experiences cyberspace as this extension of one's mind - as a transitional space between self and other - the door is thrown wide open for all sorts of fantasies and transference reactions to be projected into this space. Under ideal conditions, people use this as an opportunity to better understand themselves, as a path for exploring their identity as it engages the identity of other people. Under less than optimal conditions, people use this psychological space to simply vent or act out their fantasies and the frustrations, anxieties, and desires that fuel those fantasies.

As an internet traveller once told me, "Everywhere I go on the internet, I keep running into...... ME!"

The psychological qualities of cyberspace are determined by the hardware and software that constitute computers and the online world. An Op has the power to throw you off an IRC channel; lag can destroy conversation in a chat group; the reply-to in a listserv group might send your e-mail to the whole list or just to the sender of the message. All of these factors affect the psychological "feel" of the environment. All of them are determined by the nuts and bolts and program code that comprise the internet infrastructure. As hardware and software change, so will the psychological aspects of cyberspace. Of particular interest is the expansion of the experiential dimensions of cyberspace by technological advances that allow more visual and auditory communication. How will the ability to see and hear other people on the internet change cyberspace? Will people WANT to give up those spaces that lack face-to-face cues but are rich in imaginative ambiguity?

The answers to such questions are still unknown. However, it has become quite clear that the virtual world is quite different than the in-person world. Digitizing people, relationships, and groups has stretched the boundaries of how and when humans can interact. Listed below are some of the unique features of cyberspace that fundamentally shape the user's psychological experience of this new social realm. In different online environments we see different combinations of these features, thus resulting in a distinct psychological quality to each environment which determines how people experience themselves and others. We may think of these features as the fundamenal elements of a conceptual model for a psychology of cyberspace. It's important to remember, though, that the ten elements listed below are only half the story. How people behave in cyberspace will always be a complex interaction between these features of cyberspace and the characteristics of the person.

Reduced Sensations

Can you see a person in cyberspace - his facial expressions and body language? Can you hear the changes in her voice? Whether an environment in cyberspace involves visual and/or auditory communication will greatly affect how people behave and the relationships that develop among people. The multimedia chat environments, audio-video conferencing, and internet-phoning surely are signs of things to come. However, the sensory experience of encountering others in cyberspace - seeing, hearing, and COMBINING seeing and hearing - is still limited. For the most part people communicate through typed language. Even when audio-video conferencing becomes efficient and easy to use, people will probably never (at least not in the near future!) be able to physically interact with each other - no handshakes, pats on the back, hugs, or kisses. The limited sensory experiences of cyberspace has some significant disadvantages - as well as some unique advantages - as compared to in-person encounters.

Texting

Despite the reduced sensory quality of text communication, it should not be underestimated as a powerful form of self expression and interpersonal relating. E-mail, chat, and instant messaging continue to be the most common forms of online interaction for reasons beyond their ease of use and inexpense compared to multimedia tools. Drawing on different cognitive abilities than talking and listening, typing one's thoughts and reading those of another is a unique way to present one's identity, perceive the identity of one's online companion, and establish a relationship. E-mail relationships in particular have evolved into a very complex, text-based process - with chat or IM relationships approaching that complexity.


Identity Flexibility

The lack of face-to-face cues has a curious impact on how people present their identity in cyberspace. Communicating only with typed text, you have the option of being yourself, expressing only parts of your identity, assuming imaginative identities, or remaining completely anonymous - in some cases, being almost invisible, as with the "lurker." In many environments, you can give yourself any name you wish. The multimedia worlds also offer the opportunity to express yourself through the visual costumes known as avatars." Anonymity has a disinhibiting effect that cuts two ways. Sometimes people use it to act out some unpleasant need or emotion, often by abusing other people. Or it allows them to be honest and open about some personal issue that they could not discuss in a face-to-face encounter.


Altered Perceptions

Sitting quietly and staring at the computer monitor can become an altered state of consciousness. While reading e-mail or text talk in chat rooms, some people experience a blending of their mind with that of the other person. In the imaginary multimedia worlds - where people shape-shift, speak via ESP, walk through walls, and spontaneously generate objects out of thin air - the experience becomes surrealistic. It mimics a state of consciousness that resembles dreams. These altered and dream-like states of consciousness in cyberspace may account for why it is so attractive for some people. It might help explain some forms of computer and cyberspace addiction.


Equalized Status

In most cases, everyone on the internet has an equal opportunity to voice him or herself. Everyone - regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. - starts off on a level playing field. Some people call this the "net democracy." Although one's status in the outside world ultimately will have some impact on one's life in cyberspace, there is some truth to this net democracy ideal. What determines your influence on others is your skill in communicating (including writing skills), your persistence, the quality of your ideas, and sometimes your technical know-how.


Transcended Space

Geographical distance makes little difference in who can communicate with whom. An engineer in Germany converses with a business woman from California on a server in Australia. It's a small world after all. The irrelevance of geography has important implications for people with unique interests or needs. In their outside life, they may not be able to find anyone near them who shares that unique interest or need. But in cyberspace, birds of a feather - even those with highly unusual feathers - easily can flock together. For support groups devoted to helping people with their problems, that can be a very beneficial feature of cyberspace. For people with antisocial motivations, that's a very negative feature of cyberspace.


Temporal Flexibility

"Synchronous communication" involves people sitting at their computer at the same time (i.e., in "real time") communicating with each other via the internet. Chat rooms are one example. On the other hand, e-mail and newsgroups involve "asynchronous communication" that does not require people to interact with each other in the moment. In both asynchronous and synchronous communication (with the exception of video conferencing and internet phoning), there is a stretching of time. During chat you have from several seconds to a minute or more to reply to the other person - a significantly longer delay than in face-to-face meetings. In e-mail or newsgroups, you have hours, days, or even weeks to respond. Cyberspace creates a unique temporal space where the ongoing, interactive time together stretches out. This provides a convenient "zone for reflection." Compared to face-to-face encounters, you have significantly more time to mull things over and compose a reply.

Some new internet users go through a period of adaptation to this novel temporal experience. For example, they may expect a reply to their e-mail immediately. Enthused about e-mail relating, they assume (perhaps unconsciously) that their partner's reply will approximate the rate of an in-person conversation. Experienced e-mail users appreciate the advantages of time stretching, and even come to understand that different e-mail users have their own e-mail pace.

In other ways, cyberspace time is condensed. If you are a member of an online community for several months, you may be considered an "old-timer." Internet environments change rapidly because it's a lot easier to write and rewrite software infrastructure than it is to build with bricks, wood, and iron. Because it's easy to move around cyberspace, who we meet and the membership of online groups also changes rapidly. Our subjective sense of time is intimately linked to the rate of change in the world in which we live. With the context of sights, sounds, and people changing around you so quickly in cyberspace, the experience of time seems to accelerate.


Social Multiplicity

With relative ease a person can contact people from all walks of life and communicate with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. When "multitasking" one can juggle many relationships in a short period of time - or even AT the same time, as in chat or instant messaging, without the other people necessarily being aware of one's juggling act. By posting a message on bulletin boards read by countless numbers of users, people can draw to themselves others who match even their most esoteric interests. Using a web search engine, they can scan through millions of pages in order to zoom their attention onto particular people and groups. The internet will get more powerful as tools for searching, filtering, and contacting specific people and groups become more effective. But why do we choose only some people to connect with - and not others? The ability to sift through so many online possibilities for developing relationships amplifies an interesting interpersonal phenomenon well-known to psychotherapists. A user will act on unconscious motivations - as well as conscious preferences and choices - in selecting friends, lovers, and enemies. This transference guides us towards specific types of people who address our underlying emotions and needs. Pressed by hidden expectations, wishes, and fears, this unconscious filtering mechanism has at its disposal an almost infinite candy store of online alternatives to choose from. As one experienced online user once said to me, "Everywhere I go in cyberspace, I keep running into the same kinds of people!" Carrying that insight one step further, another said, "Everywhere I go, I find.... ME!"


Recordability

Most online activities, including e-mail correspondence and chat sessions, can be recorded and saved to a computer file. Unlike real world interactions, the user in cyberspace can keep a permanent record of what was said, to whom, and when. Because these interactions are purely document-based, we may even go so far as to say that the relationship between people ARE the documents, and that the relationship can be permanently recorded in its entirety. These records may come in very handy to the user. You can reexperience and reevaluate any portion of the relationship you wish. You can use quoted text as feedback to the partner. One sign of a flame war is the blossoming of the infamous arrows >> that highlight the ammunition of quoted text. Although it's tempting to think of the saved text as an objective record of some piece of the relationship, it's fascinating to see how different your emotional reactions to the same exact record can be when you reread it at different times. Depending on our state of mind, we invest the recorded words with all sorts of meanings and intentions.


Media Disruption

We all expect our computers and the internet to interact with us. That's the name of the game. Nevertheless, no matter how complex and sophisticated our electronic tools become, there will always be moments when they fail to live up to their end of the bargain. There will be moments when software and hardware don't work properly, when noise intrudes into the communication, and connections break. There will be moments when our telecommunication systems give us nothing, not even an error message. The frustration and anger we experience in reaction to these failures says something about our relationship to our machines and the internet - something about our dependency on them, our need to control them. That lack of response also opens the door for us to project all sorts of worries and anxieties onto the machine that gives us no reply. I call these the "black hole experiences" of cyberspace. Fortunately, some computer-mediated environments are more robust than others. Those differences in reliability, predictability, and dependability are important psychological influences.

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2. Disinhibition, Transference, and Personality Types in Cyberspace


The Online Disinhibition Effect

It's well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly. Researchers call this the "disinhibition effect." It's a double-edged sword. Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity. On the other hand, the disinhibition effect may not be so benign. Out spills rude language and harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats. Or people explore the dark underworld of the internet, places of pornography and violence, places they would never visit in the real world. On the positive side, the disinhibition indicates an attempt to understand and explore oneself, to work through problems and find new ways of being. And sometimes it is simply a blind catharsis, an acting out of unsavory needs and wishes without any personal growth at all.

What causes this online disinhibition? What is it about cyberspace that loosens the psychological barriers that block the release of these inner feelings and needs? Several factors are at play. For some people, one or two of them produces the lion's share of the disinhibition effect. In most cases, though, these factors interact with each other, supplement each other, resulting in a more complex, amplified effect.


You Don't Know Me (anonymity)

As you move around the internet, most of the people you encounter can't easily tell who you are. System operators and some technologically savvy, motivated users may be able to detect your e-mail or internet address, but for the most part people only know what you tell them about yourself. If you wish, you can keep your identity hidden. As the word "anonymous" indicates, you can have no name - at least not your real name. That anonymity works wonders for the disinhibition effect. When people have the opportunity to separate their actions from their real world and identity, they feel less vulnerable about opening up. Whatever they say or do can't be directly linked to the rest of their lives. They don't have to own their behavior by acknowledging it within the full context of who they "really" are. When acting out hostile feelings, the person doesn't have to take responsibility for those actions. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those behaviors "aren't me at all." In psychology this is called "dissociation."


You Can't See Me (invisibility)

In many online environments other people cannot see you. As you browse through web sites, message boards, and even some chat rooms, people may not even know you are there at all - with the possible exception of web masters and other users who have access to software tools that can detect traffic through the site, assuming they have the inclination to keep an eye on you, one of maybe hundreds or thousands of users. Invisibility gives people the courage to go places and do things that they otherwise wouldn't.

This power to be concealed overlaps with anonymity, because anonymity is the concealment of identity. But there are some important differences. In text communication such as e-mail, chat, and instant messaging, others may know a great deal about who you are. However, they still can't see or hear you - and you can't see or hear them. Even with everyone's identity visible, the opportunity to be PHYSICALLY invisible amplifies the disinhibition effect. You don't have to worry about how you look or sound when you say (type) something. You don't have to worry about how others look or sound when you say something. Seeing a frown, a shaking head, a sigh, a bored expression, and many other subtle and not so subtle signs of disapproval or indifference can slam the breaks on what people are willing to express. In psychoanalysis, the analyst sits behind the patient in order remain a physically ambiguous figure, without revealing any body language or facial expression, so that the patient has free range to discuss whatever he or she wants, without feeling inhibited by how the analyst is physically reacting. In everyday relationships, people sometimes avert their eyes when discussing something personal and emotional. It's easier not to look into the other's face. Text communication offers a built-in opportunity to keep one's eyes averted.


Delayed Reactions (asynchronicity)

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 asynchronicous 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.


It's All in My Head (solipsistic introjection)

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.

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!


Leveling the Playing Field (neutralizing of status)

While online a person's status in the in-person world may not be known to others and it may not have as much impact as it does in the in-person world. If people can't see you or your surroundings, they don't know if you are the president of a major corporation sitting in your expensive office, or some "ordinary" person lounging around at home in front of the computer. Even if people do know something about your offline status and power, that elevated position may have little bearing on your online presence and influence. In most cases, everyone on the internet has an equal opportunity to voice him or herself. Everyone - regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. - starts off on a level playing field. Although one's status in the outside world ultimately may have some impact on one's powers in cyberspace, what mostly determines your influence on others is your skill in communicating (including writing skills), your persistence, the quality of your ideas, and your technical know-how.

People are reluctant to say what they really think as they stand before an authority figure. A fear of disapproval and punishment from on high dampens the spirit. But online, in what feels like a peer relationship - with the appearances of "authority" minimized - people are much more willing to speak out or misbehave.


Interaction Effects

Of course, the online disinhibition effect is not the only factor that determines how much people open up or act out in cyberspace. The strength of underlying feelings, needs, and drive level has a big influence on how people behave. Personalities also vary greatly in the strength of defense mechanisms and tendencies towards inhibition or expression. People with histrionic styles tend to be very open and emotional. Compulsive people are more restrained. The online disinhibition effect will interact with these personality variables, in some cases resulting in a small deviation from the person's baseline (offline) behavior, while in other cases causing dramatic changes.


Online Transference Reactions

One of the effects of online disinhibition may be the enhancement of transference reactions. 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.

When people exchange photos, call on the telephone, or finally meet the other, they are often surprised at how the real person does not always match the image they had developed in their mind. Meeting face-to-face challenges and reshapes the transference reactions.


Personality Types in Cyberspace

The basic psychological features of online environments shape how people and groups behave in those realms. But that's only half the story. Online behavior will always be determined by how those features interact with the characteristics of the people in those environments. A variety of systems might be useful in classifying those characteristics. We might focus on specific features of the user, such as the person's computer skills, goals for using the internet, demographic characteristics (age, social-economic status, occupation, etc). There also are several comprehensive theoretical systems in psychology that could help us examine how various personality types behave in cyberspace - for example, the Myers-Briggs system or Guilford's personality model.

Cyberspace is a psychological extension of the individual's intrapsychic world. It is a psychological space that can stimulate the processes of projection, acting out, and transference - that can alter sensory experience and can even create a dream-like state of mind. A theory that specializes in understanding the intrapsychic world and the various dimensions of consciousness would be especially useful in understanding this "person" side of the person/environment interaction.

Psychoanalytic theory fits that bill very well. It contains a very rich, comprehensive model of personality types resulting from 100 years of research and clinical practice. Nancy McWilliams' book Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (Guilford Press, 1994) is an excellent resource that summarizes and integrates the various psychoanalytic concepts about major personality types. For each of these types, McWilliams explores the characteristic affects, temperment, developmental organization, defenses, adaptive processes, object relations, and transference/countertransference phenomena. The personality styles discussed are:

One highly productive area of research would be to explore how these personality types behave online, how they subjectively experience and react to the various psychological features of cyberspace, how they shape the online experience for others, and the pathological as well as potentially salutary aspects of their online activities. Some interesting questions to explore might include the following:
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3. Identity Management and the Integration Principle


Who are you in cyberspace? Am I the same John Suler I am in-person or someone a bit different? One of the interesting things about the internet is the opportunity if offers people to present themselves in a variety of different ways. You can alter your style of being just slightly or indulge in wild experiments with your identity by changing your age, history, personality, physical appearance, even your gender. The username you choose, the details you do or don't indicate about yourself, the information presented on your personal web page, the persona or "avatar" you assume in an online community - all are important aspects of how people manage their identity in cyberspace. Identity is a very complex aspect of human nature. Here are five interlocking factors that are useful in navigating that maze of how people manage who they are in cyberspace:


1. Level of Dissociation and Integration

The multiple aspects of
one's identity may be
dissociated, enhanced,
or integrated online.
A single person's identity embodies multiplicity. You possess many sectors within your personality and play numerous roles in your life - such as child, parent, student, employee, neighbor, friend. Cyberspace offers a niche for each of these specific facets of selfhood. Some people even talk about how we can "deconstruct" ourselves online. We don't have to present ourselves in toto - how we look, talk, move, our history, thoughts, feelings, and personality, all in one big package. In different environments, we can divvy up and present our characteristics in packets of various sizes and content. Thanks to thousands of online groups each devoted to a distinct professional, vocational, or personal topic, we can express, highlight, and develop specific interests and life experiences while setting aside others. You don't have to mention to your stock trading e-mail list that you also hang out at the "I Dream of Jeannie" fan club site. When you join an online community, you often have a choice about how much, if any, personal information you place into the members' profile database. Online communication tools even give you the choice about whether you want people to see how you look or hear your voice. The desire to remain anonymous reflects the need to eliminate those critical features of your identity that you do NOT want to display in that particular environment or group. The desire to lurk - to hide completely - indicates the person's need to split off his entire personal identity from his observing of those around him: he wants to look, but not be seen.

Compartmentalizing or dissociating one's various online identities like this can be an efficient, focused way to manage the multiplicities of selfhood. William James, one of the greatest of American psychologists, talked about how the normal mind operates in a "field" of consciousness in which one's awareness shifts among different hot spots of ideas, memories, and feelings. Role theory in social psychology speaks about how a successful life is an efficient juggling of the various tasks and positions we accumulate and develop from childhood through adulthood. Cyberspace living is yet another manifestation of this shifting, juggling maneuver. It gives people the opportunity to focus on and develop a particular aspect of who they are. It may even give people the chance to express and explore facets of their identity that they do not express in their face-to-face world. Everyone in Jim's in-person world may not know that he is a romantic medieval knight in an online role-playing game.

However, the importance of integrating the assorted components of selfhood should not be ignored. Bringing together the various components of online and offline identity into one balanced, harmonious whole may be the hallmark of mental health - what I like to call the "integration principle." This principle will be discussed in more detail later.


2. Positive and Negative Valence

Negative aspects of
identity can be acted
out or worked through.
Positive aspects can be
expressed and developed.
The different components of who we are can be categorized as either positive or negative. There are some universal criteria that can help us distinguish the two. Most of the time we will criticize a person's need to hurt other people and applaud compassion. But it's not necessary to present universal truisms about good and bad. Subjectively, a person can feel shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, or hatred about some aspect of their identity, while accepting and appreciating other aspects. People also strive to attain new, idealized ways of being. Those who act out in cyberspace - who are in some way hurting or violating the rights of others, or hurting themselves - are usually discharging some negatively charged aspect of their psyche. This purely cathartic act often goes no where. An insecure, passive-aggressive person gets stuck in an endless stream of online arguments. Others may use cyberspace as a opportunity to exercise their positive characteristics, or to develop new ones in a process of "self-actualization." Online romances, even those involving a clearly recognized element of fantasy, can be growth-promoting. In some cases people may express a negative trait in an attempt to work through it. They are trying to transform the negative feature of their identity into a positive one, or perhaps change their attitude about that feature. A gay person who learns to accept his homosexuality as a result of participation in an online support group has changed the valence from negative to positive.

Whether we view something about ourselves as positive or negative can become a complex issue. Is it good or bad that a person tends to be quiet? Sometimes we have mixed feelings. We are ambivalent. The various environments and styles of communication on the internet serve as a flexible testing ground for exploring those intertwining pluses and minuses. In back-channel e-mail, a fellow lurker in a listserv for professionals may help the quiet person learn the value of being silent in some situations. In a chat room, that same quiet person comes to realize the freedom and delight of spontaneously opening up, and how that leads to friendships.


3. Level of Fantasy or Reality

One's online identity
can be real-to-life,
imaginary, or hidden.
In some online groups - for example, professional e-mail lists - you are expected to present yourself as you truly are. You don't pretend to be someone other than your true identity. Other groups in cyberspace encourage or even require that you assume an imaginary persona, as in the fantasy worlds of MOOs, MUDs, and other game environments. In multimedia chat communities, you have no choice but to wear an imaginative looking avatar to represent yourself. Many other environments fall somewhere in between reality and fantasy. You could get away with pretending to be someone very different than who you are, or you could alter just a few features - like your name, occupation, or physical appearance - while retaining your other true characteristics. No one will know, especially in text-only environments. In fact, you don't know for sure if other people are altering their identities, or how many people are altering their identities. This power to alter oneself often interlocks with dissociation and valence. Hidden positive and negative parts of oneself may seek expression in an imaginary identity that comes to life online.

The tricky phenomenological issue with the real versus fantasy self is this: What is one's TRUE identity? We usually assume it must be the self that you present to others and consciously experience in your day-to-day living. But is that the true self? Many people walk around in their f2f lives wearing "masks" that are quite different than how they think and feel internally. All the time people are discovering things about their personality that they never realized before. Our daydreams and fantasies often reveal hidden aspects of what we need or wish to be. If people drop the usual f2f persona and bring to life online those hidden or fantasied identities, might not that be in some ways MORE true or "real"?


4. Level of Conscious Awareness and Control

People differ in how much
their unconscious needs
and emotions surface in
their online identities.
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.


5. The Media Chosen

Different communication
channels express different
aspects of identity.
We express our identity in the clothes we wear, in our body language, through the careers and hobbies we pursue. We can think of these things as the media through which we communicate who we are. Similarly, in cyberspace, people choose a specific communication channel to express themselves. There are a variety of possibilities and combinations of possibilities, each choice giving rise to specific attributes of identity. People who rely on text communication prefer the semantics of language and perhaps also the linear, composed, rational, analytic dimensions of self that surface via written discourse. They may be the "verbalizers" that have been described in the cognitive psychology literature - as opposed to "visualizers" who may enjoy the more symbolic, imagistic, and holistic reasoning that is expressed via the creation of avatars and web graphics. Some people prefer synchronous communication - like chat - which reflects the spontaneous, free-form, witty, and temporally "present" self. Others are drawn to the more thoughtful, reflective, and measured style of asynchronous communication, as in message boards and e-mail. There are personalities that want to show and not receive too much by using web cams or creating web pages; to receive and not show too much by lurking or web browsing; and still others who want to dive into highly interactive social environments where both showing and receiving thrive.

The media chosen can intimately interlock with the degree of identity integration and dissociation, and with the extent to which a person presents a real or imaginary self. One interesting question concerning the future of the internet is whether people will want to use audio and video tools. Do they want others to experience their identity as if it were a f2f meeting, with voice and body language? Or will they prefer the alternative communication pathways in order to express their identity in new and different ways?


Bringing Online and Offline Together: The Integration Principle

If there are any universally valid principles in psychology, one of them must be the importance of integration: the fitting together and balancing of the various elements of the psyche to make a complete, harmonious whole. A faulty or pathological psychic system is almost always described with terms that connote division and fragmentation, such as "repression," "dissociation," and "splitting." Health, on the other hand, is usually specified with terms that imply integration and union, such as "insight," "assimilation," and "self actualization." Many religious philosophies also emphasize the attainment of connectedness and unity as the major theme of spiritual development. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That greatness can only be realized when the parts are joined together.

So what does this have to do with the psychology of cyberspace? There are two basic ways the internet tends to create division in one's life and identity. First, people tend to separate their online lives from their offline lives. You may have online companions, groups, and activities that are quite distinct from those you have in the face-to-face world. For some people, the two worlds are worlds apart. Second, among the thousands of different groups and activities online, with each specializing in a particular topic or activity, people easily can join a handful of them. A movie group here, a parent group there. It's fairly easy to compartmentalize our various interests and activities. In this complex, modern society of ours, we juggle dozens of different tasks, hobbies, and social roles: mother, wife, daughter, professional, cook, reader, bicyclist, investor...... Cyberspace provides places for you to perch all of your identifications - places all separate from each other, each containing people who may know little or nothing about your other perches. How different than the societies of centuries past, when people lived in small towns and villages. Many of your neighbors knew about all your interests and activities. Your daily tasks, the people you engaged, the groups you belonged to, were all overlapped and connected.

This split between online and offline living and the compartmentalizing of one's identifications are not necessarily bad things. Hanging out online can be a healthy means of setting aside the stresses of one's face-to-face day. Online groups with specialized interests offer you the opportunity to focus on that particular aspect of your identity, with information and support from people that may not be available elsewhere. Dissociation can be an efficient way to manage the complexities of one's lifestyle and identity, especially when social roles are not easily compatible with each other. The president of the corporation may need to keep his participation in the "I Dream of Jeannie" newsgroup separate from his business life. In more precarious situations, an aspect of one's identity is sensitive, vulnerable, or possibly harmful to oneself or others. It may be necessary to keep it guarded within a specific online or offline location until helpful conditions allow it to be emerge safely. I'll say more about this later.

As a general rule, the integrating of online and offline living and of the various sectors of one's internet activities is a good idea. Why? Integration - like commerce - creates synergy. It leads to development and prosperity. Both sides of the trade are enriched by the exchange. If the goal of life is to know thyself, as Socrates suggested, then it must entail knowing how the various elements of thyself fit together to make that Big Self that is you. Reaching that goal also means understanding and taking down the barriers between the sectors of self. Barriers are erected out of the need to protect, out of fear. Those anxieties too are a component of one's identity. They need to be reclaimed, tamed. Maybe it would do that corporation president some good to bring his fondness for Jeannie into his office. Maybe bringing something of one's online lifestyle into the face-to-face world would make that in-person lifestyle less stressful. It's interesting to note that "internet addiction" - or, for that matter, any kind of addiction - entails an isolating and guarding of the compulsive activity against all other aspects of one's life. Overcoming the addiction means releasing and mastering the needs and anxieties that have been locked into the habit. It means reclaiming the isolated self back into the mainstream of one's identity.

So how does one achieve integration? Below I'll outline some possibilities. I'll focus on connecting one's online and offline living. But it's very easy to adapt these strategies to integrating the various compartments within one's online world, as well as within one's offline world.

1. Telling online companions about one's offline life.
Lurking, imaginative role playing, and anonymous exchanges with people online can be perfectly fine activities. But if a person wants to deepen and enrich his relationship with online companions, he might consider letting them know about his in-person life: work, family, friends, home, hobbies. Those companions will have a much better sense of who he is. They may even be able to give him some new insights into how his offline identity compares to how he presents himself online. Without even knowing it, he may have dissociated some aspect of his cyberspace self from his in-person self. Online companions can help him see that.

2. Telling offline companions about one's online life.
If a person lets family and friends know about her online activities, she may be allowing them to see parts of her identity that she otherwise did not fully express in-person. They can give her insightful feedback about her online lifestyle and companions. When communicating only with typed text in cyberspace, it's easy to misread, even distort, the personality and intentions of the people she meets. Offline friends and family - who know her well - can give her some perspective about those distortions.

3. Meeting online companions in-person.
As friendships and romances evolve on the internet, people eventually want to talk on the phone and meet in-person. That's usually a very natural, healthy progression. The relationship can deepen when people get to see and hear each other, when they get a chance to visit each others environment. They also get a chance to realize the misconceptions they may have developed online about each other. That, in turn, will help them understand themselves.

4. Meeting offline companions online.
If a person encourages family, friends, and colleagues to connect with him in cyberspace, he is opening a different channel of communication with them. Almost everyone does e-mail nowadays, but there's also chat, message boards, interacting with web sites, online games, even imaginative role playing. He may discover something new about his companion's personality and interests. And his companion may discover something new about him.

5. Bringing online behavior offline.
River, an online friend of mine, once described cyberspace living as "training wheels." On the internet a person may be experimenting with new ways to express herself. She may be developing new behaviors and aspects of her identity. If she introduces them into her f2f lifestyle and relationships, she may better understand those behaviors and why previously she was unable to develop them in the f2f world.

6. Bringing offline behavior online.
Translating an aspect of one's identity from one realm to another often strengthens it. You are testing it, refining it, in a new environment. So if it's beneficial to bring online behaviors offline, then it's also beneficial to bring offline behaviors online. Cyberspace gives a person the opportunity to try out his usual f2f behaviors and methods of self expression in new situations, with new people.

As I suggested earlier, there is a caveat about this integration process. Some aspects of a person's identity may feel shameful to the person. They may be rejected by or hurtful to other people. If acted upon, they may even be illegal. In that complex universe of cyberspace, there are many places where people can go to give expression to these problematic aspects of their identity. Should they tell people about it? Should they express these things in-person? Should they carry into cyberspace a problematic behavior from their f2f life?

There is no simple answer to these questions. Under optimal conditions, translating troublesome issues from one realm to the other can be helpful, even therapeutic. A person who learns to accept his homosexuality in an online support group may benefit by coming out in the f2f world. But a pedophile who goes online to carry out his intentions creates only harm. Offline/online "integration" that results in a blind acting out of impulses that hurts other people is not healthy. In fact, it's not psychological integration at all. Integration involves self-understanding and personal growth, which involves working through - and not simply acting out - the problematic aspects of one's identity.

This article is from John Suler's online book The Psychology of Cyberspace. Other articles from the book that are offered for CE credit by the Psy Broadcasting Company are listed in the index located at www.truecenterpoint.com/ce/index.html