The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online

Dr. Aiken skillfully examines all the ways in which regular internet usage affects the human pysche. From gaming and social media, to porn sites and radicalization, multiple examples are presented of ways in which every internet user is being influenced. The book is comprehensively documented, well sources, and provides dozens of case studies to help ease your way through the material. An extremely interesting read, especially when considering current political topics, Covid-19, and the upcoming election. Almost everything you touch in daily life is connected to the internet, do you know how it is affecting you?

This book says that technology by itself is neutral. Technology can be used for good or bad purposes. She said that although some people know about some of the incredible great benefits of the Internet, some people are unaware of some of the dangers of the Internet. To a large degree, the younger a person is, the number of friends a person has on a social network increases. This is what a Facebook 2014 study revealed: For those over 65 years old, the average number of Facebook friends in 102. For those between 45 and 54 years old, the average is 220. For those people 25 to 35 years old, the average number is 360. For those 18 to 24, the average number is 649. When a child or a young adult has a large number of Facebook friends, we’re often not talking about an intimate group of friends. Many of these Facebook friends aren’t true deep friends in the real-world sense. They often don’t deeply know much and care about you. They are online contacts. Spending more time on social media can sometimes have young adults and children less socially competent, not more. In the real world, if five friends turn on a person, it is bad enough. Now image if one thousand of your Facebook friends turned against you, not many young adults and children would have the social skills to deal with that. Not many older adults too would have the social skills to deal with that too. The young adult or child can be unfairly cyber bullied and hypersensitive to criticism. A lot of times on the Facebook, the more friends a person has on Facebook, the more real world friends they don’t have.

This book examines the effects of a number of online technologies such as social media, messaging and various forms of content on behaviour both positive and negative. I pre ordered this book having attending a conference in Dublin at which the author presented. I was impressed with what she had to say at the conference and intrigued by the research she is doing. Unfortunately not much original research is outlined in this book and while it does introduce some concepts such as the online facilitation effect overall there is not much new or original thinking. It is as some others have pointed out a little disorganised but overall an interesting and recommended read. I was expecting more new concepts but that is related to my own anticipation rather than any fault with the book. When aimed at the mass market the content is about right.The author uses a number of psychoanalytical references and this helps explain the core concepts of human behaviour across the various the areas addressed in the book. This is an interesting and welcome perspective for a researcher at the forefront of modern psychology. Bear with me for my own interpretation of the psychodynamic theme across the areas addressed. For the young child the primary care giver traditionally the mother but gender neutral is ever present to fulfil all their desires. From the child perspective they appear to exist solely for this purpose of meeting their needs. As the child grows the care giver is drawn to other responsibilities maybe another child or another care giver (such as the father). For the first time the child realises there is something they desire that they cannot have and have a problem to resolve. This problem relates to how they deal with lack and desire and sets a tone for similar problems, common in later life. The problem to be resolved is the Freudian Oedipus complex, the child desires the primary care giver and wants to remove the draw on their attention. We all have our own unconscious relationship with lack and desire and how they are apparently fulfilled online is a major factor in our online behaviour.Relating this to the books content we are now faced online with apparent quick fixes for common psychological desires and how we handle that desire and its instant gratification mediates our relationship with online technologies. If we have a healthy relationship with lack and desires online technologies have some dangers but are not really a problem. To be controlled such as we control a healthy diet but overall positive. If we do not have such a healthy relationship it may cause us some undesired side effects.As social animals it is ecologically beneficial for us to be valued members of our social groups, presenting ourselves well and defending ourselves from actions/insults which may compromise our standing. Traditionally this played our over years and we interacted with a relatively small group of people. Now we are faced with apparent instant social status via Facebook, Twitter etc. and how we deal with the social desire to be part of a group and self-present in light of this instant solution in a large way affects our online behaviour. Online Porn also described in the book is a more extreme example of the desire and instant gratification relationship for which online access has radically changed behaviour both online and offline. The online disinhibition effect described in the book makes us less aware of the consequences of our online activity and more likely to engage than we would we were physically aware of the audience and could experience their verbal and nonverbal feedback. It also makes us less aware of the consequences, again well outlined in the book.This is not dissimilar to problems presented for instance with easy access to items like salt, alcohol, drugs. We biologically programmed to consume salt when available, an ecological advantage for a scarce resource the modern easy access and abundance causes us problems. Just like solving problem with obesity due to an unhealthy relationship with food is difficult solving issues with our online behaviour will not be easy particularly with the large commercial interests involved.A more in-depth analysis on the widespread impact of this on young men is presented in Man (Dis)Connected: How Technology Has Sabotaged What it Means to be Male by Philip Zimbardo. This does provide some more detail on the porn related issues outlined in early chapters of the book and how this transfers to the real world. Also a recommended read.The author does propose an interdisciplinary approach to address these issues and acknowledges that the online world is moving too fast to wait for traditional and longitudinal studies on impacts before taking action.

Dr. Aiken is amazing. I follow her on linked in to follow her work. She’s my biggest idol! This book is just another amazing part of her incredible work. It’s super easy to read and she does an incredible job at explaining things fairly easy. It’s very informative and it changes a lot the way you visualize your life and the world.Thank you for sharing your amazing knowledge with us, Dr. Aiken!!

Wonderfully written book about the influence of internet access on behavior. I'm a college grad with a science degree and was expecting a book laden with dry research. Aiken presents the research in a way that is concise and easily digestible. Her claims can be mistaken for bias or received with skeptics from the layman because the results of the research and her conclusions are pretty significant. However, those familiar with science or at the least basic research methods will find it immensely insightful.

This book is a must read. It carefully explores the pitfalls of the internet and pf social media.

Web indeed forms a new behavior and there are a number of stories to it. Where the author build for herself a formidable career out of it, it has not been demonstrated well how the knowledge allowed to be involved in all the activities that are reported in the book (starting with the the very SWAT team activity at the beginning). Covering stories well reported in other books, blogs and podcasts does not bode well for the originality of this one.

I enjoy this book because it goes beyond social media which is a topic that is overstated. Instead, they focus on the whole picture and how we are changing without even realizing. Makes you reflect on what you can do about it.

I loved this book, it provides a very good insight into how cyber space affects humans. The stories that are incorporated in the chapters emphasize what is explain to the reader.One of the best books that I have read so far.

The author has an engrossing narration style which makes the serious topic pretty interesting to read. Pretty heavy, after every line you need to stop , think and let the words sink in. The topics trouble you, and also makes you realise , things are fast going out of control.Also glad that the questions I have, there are others too with the same questions.I would suggest it for anyone who is disturbed by the changing society due to digitisation.

Very interresting book! I changed my iPhone to a basic phone with voice only and I am happier.

Je voulais comprendre pourquoi les gens se comportaient comme des connards sur le net et j'ai ma réponse. Même si je ne suis pas entièrement d'accord sur l'analyse de l'auteur, de nombreux points sont abordés et chaque chapitre est assez clair. Je ne suis pas un anglais natif mais le livre se lit plutôt bien. À lire avant d'avoir un enfant car vous ne donnerez plus un smartphone à votre bambin après avoir lu ce livre. Je recommande !

I did a lot of reflecting after reading this book...I recommended it to two friends and bought it for the library