The psychology of the Internet

The Internet is a technology that has expanded rapidly over relatively few years and millions of users are interacting with each other using the new medium without having considered how this communication differs in quantity and quality from more established information channels.

Using examples from established researches in the field of social psychology and more recent studies on various aspects of the Internet phenomenon, we can consider how human behavior is influenced by the peculiar characteristics of the new "Web-World".

The first question, the psychology of aggression in the net. It appears that the possibility of assumed anonymity and actual physical distance between web participants leads to disinhibited behavior. The normal social conventions of face-to-face meetings are left behind. Triggered by the frustration of slow responses, long waits for pagers to load and log, Internet users have a tendency often to interpret neutral messages in a negative manner, prompting an aggressive response.

                        However, there is and a positive side of Internet interaction. The most powerful attractor in real-life settings is physical attractiveness, closely followed by proximity. The physical attractiveness heuristic associates happiness, sociability, warmth, likeability, success and intelligence. With the lucky person while we more readily become friends with people whom we see frequently. So these two main factors in interpersonal attraction are translated on the Internet