In regard to module 5 of
our Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) course I’m taking, Dr. Read presented
on CMC & Psychology. At the end, she
asked the questions: Who are you online?
How many online personalities do you have? I would like to think that I don’t have
multiple personalities online and that I am the same person everywhere I go
online; however, I am more open online than I used to be. After becoming pregnant, I started to
participate in an online mom’s groups. Some
of the groups are local moms that live in my area and then some are moms from
all over the world that have children the same age as my son. We share information and discuss all sorts of
things at length. This is not something
I would have done prior to pregnancy but being responsible for sustaining and
developing another life has a way of pushing you outside of your comfort
zone.
The research I did for
our team project revolving around social networking theory is right in line
with the cyberpsychology reading Dr. Read assigned for this module. In one
of the articles, Social Network Research:
The Foundation of Network Science, Wasserman and Robins remind us that “the
network paradigm has made a large impact on behavioral science over the past
decade” and goes onto say that “psychological research focuses on individuals
but there are often situations in which the social environment—and more
generally, social system—affects individual responses” (451, 467). As a psychology major, I’m curious to see how
psychology research will change over my lifetime. There seems to be a shift occurring to focus
on the network as a whole rather than just the individual. Now more than ever, it's important to take
into consideration outside factors when studying individual responses.
Wasserman, Stanley; Robins,
Garry. “Social Network Research: The Foundation of Network
Science.” APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, vol.
3, Data Analysis and Research Publication
