The Cyber Effect
A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behaviour Changes Online
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
Dr Mary Aiken is the world's leading expert in forensic cyberpsychology - a discipline that combines psychology, criminology and technology to investigate the intersection between technology and human behaviour. In this, her first book, Aiken has created a starting point for all future conversations about how the Internet is shaping our perception of the world, development and behaviour, societal norms and values, children, safety and security.
Covering everything from the impact of screens on the developing child to the explosion of teen sexting, and the acceleration of compulsive and addictive online behaviours (gaming, shopping, pornography), The Cyber Effect also examines the escalation in cyberchondria (self-diagnosis online), cyberstalking and organized crime in the Deep Web. Cyberspace is an environment full of surveillance, but who is looking out for us? Full of surprising statistics and incredible-but-true case studies of the hidden trends that are shaping our culture, this book raises troubling questions about where the digital revolution is taking us.
Upending your assumptions about your online life and forever changing the way you think about the technology that you, your friends and your family use, The Cyber Effect offers a fascinating and chilling look at a future we can still do something about.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aiken, a self-described forensic cyberpsychologist, shows in compelling detail how the online world bleeds into people's daily lives in ways that occasionally involve actual bloodshed. The online environments that people increasingly inhabit provide a range of benefits, but they present as many problems. Aiken's stories are stirring enough to stand alone: she covers the near-normalized phenomenon of online dating, the addictive and fatal extremes of gaming, and even murders that are motivated by aspirations of Internet fame. Some analysis focuses on how children respond to the digitized world, information that is especially useful to parents hoping to protect their children from developing bad habits or ending up in danger. Aiken accompanies every anecdote with her own carefully researched, comprehensible analysis. Some of the final notes might read as extreme; for example, her suggestion of a general redesign of the Internet seems at this point inconceivable, and predictions of an all-encompassing battle between humans and machines feels more like the stuff of movies than of scholarship. Still, the relevance of Aiken's careful discussion is undeniable.
