_________________________________________________________________ VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 PSYCHNEWS INTERNATIONAL Sept/Oct 1998 -- AN ONLINE PUBLICATION -- _________________________________________________________________ SECTION B: EDITORIAL WHO ARE THE INTERNET PEOPLE? OLD, NEW-LOOOKING AND NEW ISSUES FOR PSYCHOLOGY, PSYCHIATRY, AND RELATED DISCIPLINES Sunkyo Kwon Once upon a time and not _that_ long ago, everyone using the Internet was a pioneer and/or privileged. Then the Internet became more and more popular. We could group the Internet users into the true pioneers, the experienced and the less experienced. In the meantime, the Internet and, particularly, the access to its tools has expanded to a degree that the true pioneers have --usually-- disappeared. Now there are single fighters and the industries' R & D departments. Nowadays, the Internet gap is widening. And with the technology lag -- the interval between availability of new technology and its wide-spread use (an issue discussed in a previous PsychNews editorial) -- the gap is getting even larger. There is a full range of different Netizens that are not readily classifiable, because the uses of the Net itself have become extremely multifacetted and there are multiple profiles of experience depending on the very heterogeneous domains considered. A whizz in search- engine technology may know little about usenet news group dynamics; a user who could operate a digital library blind- folded may be lost if dealing with different compression formats that ftp (file transfer protocol) users are most familiar with. Chat users with buddy clients may not be cognizant of WAIS applications. So, for the sake of con- venience, let us boldly state that in October 1998, that there are the users and the non-users of Internet techno- logy. On a global undifferentiated level, the user numbers have again tremendously grown, but just in mass -- not in proportions: The USA still outbalances all other nations in terms of Net presence and activities. Europe follows suit. Where are the Asians? Where are the Africans? And for that matter, issues of "access for all", "universal design" and "user-friendliness" are still hotly debated, but still exist only on a lip-service level. Where are the handicapped on the Net? Where are the elderly? Where are the women (that are not associated with the computer industy or with academe)? Where are the poor and unemployed? For the present non-users, it becomes harder and harder to catch up with current developments. And it will definitely not become any easier in the near future. The "socialization" of new users has reached new dimensions, because of their lightning-fast massive emergence. Although the experienced users have grown in numbers, too, the signal-to-noise ratios hardly change because of fluctuations and new influx. All too often do you still find messages posted to hundreds of subscribers in email discussion forums of the "please-unsubscribe-I-lost- the-instructions" nature. Searching list archives on web interfaces or through email commands to a listserver are hardly known, even to long-term subscribers of particular email discussion forums. Life cycles of Internet-based discussion forums often take on the form of a helix, not of a cycle. However, each new turn in the helix is not a mere repetition of the previous. Technological refinements (and sheer mass) magnify complexity and confusion. In a recent article of the American Psychologist (vol. 53, issue 9, pp. 1017-1031), Kraut et al. reported on negative effects of Internet usage. I will not attempt to go deeper into this study which has already gained world-wide attraction and which has been discussed in numerous Internet-based discussion groups, covered on websites, and cited in the print media. Just one small observation: The authors them- selves admitted that the results may have turned out differently with regard to the negative outcomes (less social interaction, more loneliness, more depression) with different sampling procedures: They had presented data of individuals who had used the Internet for the first time and -- in the majority -- who had had their first real ex- perience with a conventional home computer. Meeting new friends online was rare. This is the very point where the expertise of psychologists, psychiatrists, and professionals from related disciplines is called for. Kraut et al. close their article with the sentence "[u]ntil the technology evolves to be more beneficial, people should moderate how much they use the Internet and monitor the uses to which they put it". Sometimes this is possible -- just like the occasional use of tobacco in a non-health-threatening degree. The question is whether this can and should be left wholly to the capabilities of all individuals' self-control and reason. Another question is whether there should not be more information supplied and required (!) regarding the peculiarities of and on the Internet. Let me say -- half- humoroursly and half-seriously -- that working with computers always inherently bears the danger to make an individual "depressed" -- even more so when being a new- comer or if expectations are raised that the same rights, rules and regularities apply as in the real world. The Internet is qualitatively different from the conventional communication and information access means (phone and TV). The analogies of the Internet potentials as extensions or "virtual models of the physical world" seem now over- stretched - communities in cyberspace are unique worlds with unique rules of conduct and unique dynamics. Of this, many are unaware. Another example is the issue of "cyber- addiction" which started to be taken serious a few years ago -- with the appearance of true Internet addicts in need of professional help. Social interactions mediated by techno- logy are not like face-to-face communication, and demand appropriate training, information and instructions for effective, efficient, and... safe use. Learning the wise use of new information and communication tools needs to be part of the curricula of psych students and, fortunately, in many countries and departments, this is now the case. Even many lay people who were initially deceived by the seemingly un- complicated nature of the start-of-the-art Internet applications have been able to look beyond the plug-and-play facade of the networked world as presented by the industry, finding that that information is _not_ readily available on the Net and that interaction with virtual chat partners demands just a high degree of social skills and competence -- sometimes even more than in actual social situations. The way the Internet seems to be heading and the nature of the technology explosion may demand even more expertise from our trade -- particularly with the advent of teletherapy and telecounseling, as well as the proliferation of other kinds of telemedicine and telehealth services that are slowly but surely snowballing. Maybe we even need psychiatrists and psychologists with trainings and specializations in new communication technology dynamics? _________________________________________________________________