The Effect of Cyberspace On Everyday Life

Its no secret that cyberspace is something a lot of people, particularly of my age, experience everyday of their lives.

Whether it be through Text messaging, Chat rooms, Facebook, Forums, Comment sections of websites, Blogs etc. it is something we interact with regularly.

Cyberspace is a great tool for easily communicating with people from wherever you or they may be. It has become a staple part of how we live our lives, with time often dedicated everyday just to the use of cyberspace. It is a brilliant way of getting back in touch with old friends and keeping contact with people you might otherwise not.

I feel cyberspace has had a profound impact on the way we live our lives, the internet has in many ways made our lives a lot easier. We can use it for research as its a source of information readily available from wherever we have a PC, phone or laptop etc.

We can use it to do our christmas shopping without ever leaving the comfort of our armchairs or to order pizza without even picking up a phone or to check our finances without going to the bank.

In many ways cyberspace is a good thing.

However it is a well known fact people say or do things in the online world that they wouldn't in the real world or face-to-face. I know there are things I could say to someone over a text message that I couldnt bring myself to say face-to-face. John Suler wrote an article called the Psychology of Cyberspace,in the article he talks about this he says: "In everyday relationships, people sometimes avert their eyes when discussing something personal and emotional. It's easier not to look into the other's face. Text communication offers a built-in opportunity to keep one's eyes averted." 

In the article Suler states that in cyberspace people "loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly". Experts refer to this as the "Disinhibition Effect". So in effect people can become more extreme versions of themselves without fear of retribution due to the often anonymous nature of cyberspace.

Suler talks about two types of Disinhibtion Benign and Toxic.

Benign disinhibition - "Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity."


Toxic disinhibition - "Out spills rude language and harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats. Or people explore the dark underworld of the internet, places of pornography and violence, places they would never visit in the real world."

Benign disinhibiton suggests a person is trying to understand and explore their own personality, to work through their problems and attempt to find new ways of being. On the other hand Toxic disinhibition is often just a blinkered form of indulgence, "an acting out of unsavory needs and wishes without any personal growth at all."

People feel they can do or say things they wouldnt normally or visit websites they think they shouldn't because the people they come across in cyberspace don't know who they are. We can view or engage in things without anyone having ever known we were there, there's a sense of invisibility in cyberspace. Allowing us to explore things that in everyday life we wouldn't or couldn't.

In cyberspace we are anonymous. We can leave offensive or outlandish comments and get away with it. We can reveal something personal about ourselves but noone will know it was about us. This opens up the possibilities to seek advice without embarassment, and to find help and support or develop relationships more easily, as in cyberspace you can stop and think about you're responses and therefore don't have to deal with a person's response immediately as you would in face-to-face conversation. 

"In real life, it would be like saying something to someone, magically suspending time before that person can reply, and then returning to the conversation when you're willing and able to hear the response"

However this coupled with anonymity opens the door to 'Cyberbullying' the ability to get away with it means this is becoming more commonplace and can have a severe impact on the victim, particularly as the things said are often far more extreme, offensive and threatening than a bully would dream of saying in the real world.

Despite the dangers and the negatives, there's no getting away from the fact that people like to use cyberspace and in my opinion the positives still far outweigh the negatives. It could be said though that the use of cyberspace is going too far and becoming a much too dominant part of our everday lives and the worry is how far can it go??