Internet Psychology

Facebook Attracts Middle-Aged And Older Users
by eNotAlone.com
New numbers from an online marketing firm iStrategy Labs indicate that more middle-aged and older people now make up the biggest group using the social networking giant Facebook.

Twitter Users Buy More Music Online
by eNotAlone.com
A new report released by NPD Group, states that people who use Twitter are much more likely to be interested and engaged in music when compared to those who don't use the social website.

Tweeter Users Do Not Like To 'Tweet'
by eNotAlone.com
According to the results of the first extensive sociological studies on Twitter, conducted by Harvard Business School, more than 90 per cent of the content on Twitter is generated just by 10 per cent of the prolific users of the frenetically popular

Techno-Crimes (Hacking): Managing deviant online behavior, Part 5
by John Suler, Ph.D.
All online deviant behavior requires some degree of technical skill because it is being expressed via a computer. What I'll call techno-crimes, on the other hand, require a bit more knowledge and skill than the ordinary user possesses.

More Complex Social Problems: Managing deviant online behavior, Part 4
by John Suler, Ph.D.
The following types of users present problems that are a bit more difficult to deal with - difficult in the sense that it requires more psychological and social expertise to manage them. This doesn't mean that the psychological or social roots of their

Speak No Evil: Deviance Involving Offensive Language. Managing deviant online behavior, Part 3
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Indecent language is another deviant behavior that spans the range from mild to severe. Relatively benign examples involve colorful expressions in which less than polite words are used to convey emphasis and emotion.

Offensive Avatars: Managing deviant behavior in online groups, Part 2
by John Suler, Ph.D.
At the upper end of deviance we find users who are deliberately trying to make trouble and/or resisting any benign attempts to talk them into behaving properly. These users may include relatively normal people who insist on doing things THEIR

Managing deviant behavior in online groups
by John Suler, Ph.D.
SNERT... That's what they call the real trouble-makers of cyberspace. Attributed by some to Kurt Vonnegut, the term stands for snot-nosed Eros-ridden teenager. It concisely captures much of what many cyberspace deviants are all about.

Geezer Brigade: Studying an online group
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Cyberspace is the information center and social playground of the relatively young, like middle-aged folks and especially the ever booming numbers of youngsters who are growing up with the word internet as commonplace in their thoughts as TV and library.

Group games using avatars
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Because you chose to link to this page, you probably already know what an avatar is. But just in case you don't, an avatar is an image or graphic that a person in an online multimedia community uses to represent him or herself. In some communities

Extending the Classroom into Cyberspace: The Discussion Board
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Around the world teachers are inviting students into cyberspace to enrich their learning experience. The tools and techniques of using online resources for teaching are as diverse as the Internet itself.

Extending a Work Group into Cyberspace
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Why Walk on the Virtual Side? Anyone who has participated often in a work group in business, education, or a volunteer organization has experienced the hassles of scheduling meetings, as well as the sometimes frustrating complexities in how small groups

A Decision-Making Method for E-mail Groups
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Sometimes in the course of an e-mail list, the group needs to make a decision about some issue at hand. In a working list - where the group's explicit purpose is to carry out a task - this may happen on a regular basis.

Psychological Dynamics of Online Synchronous Conversations in Text-Driven Chat Environments
by John Suler, Ph.D.
In the beginning, there was TextTalk. And only TextTalk. Now that the internet has become multimedia, sounds and images also are whizzing by us. But even with the advent of video and audio streaming, typed text continues to reign supreme as the primary

Online Therapy and Support Groups
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Of particular interest to clinical and social psychologists are those groups with a therapeutic, remedial, or supportive aim. These could include formal group therapy led by professionals, as well as self-help organizations.

Early history of an online community, Part 3. Extra-Palatial Encounters
by John Suler, Ph.D.
The primary focus or hot spot of the Palace community is the Palace itself - a visual chat environment where people converse and play with graphics, scripts, and sounds. However, over the course of its development, the community has spilled over into

Early history of an online community, Part 2. Coping with the Masses: Social Differentiation
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Beginning in the second trimester of Palace history, the population started to expand. 50, 60, 100 people were signing on to Main in the evening hours. Eventually, over 200 people occupied the server each night. The small, intimate community from

Early history of an online community
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Why write a history of Palace now? It's only a little over a year old. This is what a few people said to me when I mentioned my plans for this chapter. Part of me thought they might be right. After all, in the grand scheme of things, how much can happen

Group Dynamics in Cyberspace
by John Suler, Ph.D.
Social psychology of online groups. Groups ranging in size from a few people to thousands and millions within a community are forming within cyberspace. Many of the classic social-psychological principles of group dynamics can be applied in understanding

Communicative Subtlety in Multimedia Chat
by John Suler, Ph.D.
By their very nature, humans love to communicate. They love to express themselves. They love to explore subtlety in communicating and expressing themselves. In the real world of five senses, people freely can experiment with language, voice modulation