By Rabbi DR. Moshe Dror
It seems to me that much of the writing that I read dealing with information technologies with in the Jewish community seem to deal with these ideas of cyberspace as merely “tools”- nice and snazzy ways of dealing with what we have doing for ages. This gives us a new toy to play with and to keep up with the younger generation.
This seems to me to miss the point of the power of Cyberia entirely. These are NOT neutral tools that just let us do what we have been doing in a more economical, expeditious way. These are unique human learning environments that never existed before, and are likely to change what it means to be human.
In order to get some idea of what is going on in the area of cyber learning and cyber spirituality, it is important to begin to understand how cyberspace affects us as humans and as humans in community.
Some suggestions that are easily available on line for your exploration ( I checked out each of these sites and they were functioning, however , if for some reason there is a problem with a direct connection , I have given enough information that you can find the site through a simple Google search.)
1. Cyberpsychology in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpsychology -a good overview of the field.
2. The Psychology of Cyberspace-
I have used this site a lot and have found it the best to begin to understand what the field is all about. This is a hypertext book-website that explores the psychological dimensions of environments created by computers and online networks. It was created by and is run by Professor John Suler of the Department of Psychology at Rider University in New Jersey, USA. He has been at this since 1966- that’s 40 years already and you can see how things have developed during these two generations. Take a look at the “Article Index” for a very detailed description and the latest listings.
http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html
This site deals with the many aspects of cyberspace such as:
1. The Basic Psychological Qualities of Cyberspace
2. The Psychology of the Individual in Cyberspace
3. The Psychology of Cyberspace relationships
4. Group Dynamics in Cyberspace
5. Research methods in Cyberpsychology
3. Another extensive and fine site is the one run by Dr. Leon James, Professor of Psychology, University of Hawaii. His site is “Cyberpsychology: Principles of Creating Virtual Presence”. He also deals with such topics as “Spirituality and Cyberspace”
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/LEONJ/leonj/leonpsy/cyber.html
4. Cyberpsychology
Dr. Michael Fenichel
http://www.cyberpsychology.com
5. If you think that Ok now I have some idea…Think again. You will have to get into the various aspects of the Internet / Web 2.0 / web 3.0/ etc
These are just a tip of a vast amount of explorations that are simply changing our world and us in it.
Take a look at cyberspace in Google=about 12 million references; Cyberpsychology about 100,000 hits.
This power is much more than just tools to play with. I hope to detail some of these in the following blogs.
