Psychology of Internet Research Paper

The Internet and the Web have also profoundly affected the conduct of science. First, these technologies now support new kinds of scientific cooperation and distributed collaboration, with major implications for the conduct of research in cognitive psychology and cognitive science. Second, the societal changes that are resulting from the technology are rich areas for study and analysis by cognitive scientists. This research paper offers brief introductions to both these topics.

1. A Brief Internet Tutorial

Like the international telephone networks and the banking infrastructure for electronic funds transfer, the Internet is technically complex. Yet, like the telephone and ATM machines used to access those other networks, the basic user interface for the Internet (and especially the browser concept used for the Web) is simple and requires no detailed understanding of the network’s technical underpinnings. A few basic principles can support a robust conceptual grasp of the Internet and the Web; once a user understands these notions, conquering the Internet and the Web can be straightforward.

The Internet is made possible by collegial agreements on standards for networking connectivity and information exchange; individual networks can connect to the Internet (and access machines on all other networks that are connected to the Internet) if they agree to abide by the standards that assure compatibility. The individual networks in the Internet must use a standard protocol for exchanging information, and this is known as the Internet protocol (IP). Coupled with another standard known as the transmission control protocol (TCP), these two standards are now the dominant communications protocols for all networking. References to TCP IP indicate that a network has adopted the Internet standard for communications.

The World Wide Web is only one application on the Internet. Others include electronic mail, file transfers, news groups, and remote login to computers. The basic protocol that supports the Web is known as the hypertext transfer protocol (or HTTP). Addresses for sites on the World Wide Web are known as uniform resource locators, abbreviated to URLs. If you know the URL for a site of interest, it is trivial to ‘visit’ that site by typing the address into a Web browser on a machine that has been connected to the Internet. Access to Web pages can also be simplified by allowing a user to click on an active area or link on one page, which automatically requests the retrieval of the associated page, even if it is on a different computer somewhere else on the Internet.

2. Internet Support For Collaboration

With the recent emergence of distributed cognition as a framework for considering group decision making, there has been increasing research regarding the role of technology in supporting cognitive activities distributed among a number of agents, potentially consisting of both humans and machines. This perspective emphasizes understanding the role of computers and technology, including the Internet, in the context of workplaces and for tasks that often involve collaboration.

Two new disciplines have emerged as a result of this trend. One is computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), concerned with developing new technologies to support work among members of groups. The other is computer mediated communication (CMC), concerned with the psychological, sociological, and cultural aspects of computer based collaboration. Combined with the disciplines of computer science and psychology, CSCW and CMC form the basis for a multidisciplinary perspective for studying human interaction with technology. Use of the Internet to support communication and collaboration is a natural extension of such work.

In many problem-solving domains, the immensity of the research challenges, coupled with the opportunities for redundancy when research is not coordinated, have led to recognition of the need for multi-investigator and multi-institutional collaboration (Cerf and The Committee on a National Collaboratory 1993). Internet-based collaboration can allow groups of researchers at diverse locations to share resources, to pool expertise, and to offer standardized programs and tools for use at their local sites (Kouzes et al. 1996). Formal experimental work has been undertaken accordingly to understand better the impact of the Internet when scientific collaborators are geographically distributed (Patel et al. 1999, Shortliffe et al. 1998). Results from such studies suggest changes in skills required with this new medium of communication, and hence the implied challenges for education and training.

The collaboratory notion has emerged as a cohesive aggregation of individuals and institutions that work towards a common set of objectives across disparate geographic locations (Cerf and The Committee on a National Collaboratory 1993). One of the central goals of a collaboratory is to create a synergistic and interdependent research entity whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At present, collaboratories can best be construed as grand-scale social experiments in the development of collective intelligence, ‘as if the conceptual object were produced by a single good mind’ (Smith 1994). Evidence suggests that, although computer mediated collaboration is a difficult enterprise, fraught with numerous cognitive, cultural, social, and technical challenges, effective network supported collaboration at a distance is attainable (Patel et al. 1999).

3. The Internet As A Subject Of Study

As with all computing technology, effective use of the Internet requires attention to cognitive issues in the optimal use of computers, but the distributed nature of the environment has created certain unique elements that distinguish the Internet and its use from other computing and communications environments.

3.1 Human–Computer Interaction

An important challenge in the development of technology based environments, including those delivered via the Internet, is the design of effective user interfaces. The World Wide Web provides an unprecedented opportunity for the widespread access to information in professional domains. However, as the number of sites increases, both professionals and lay people are finding themselves overloaded with a wealth of information that is in need of automated filtering.

A number of additional issues center around human factors and cognitive issues related to meeting the information needs of extremely varied audiences and end-users. For example, in healthcare these users range from medical specialists to patients, each having varied background knowledge (Patel et al. 2000). The development of methods for evaluating Internet applications regarding their effectiveness and utility, even though these systems are accessed from locations ranging from the workplace to the home, is accordingly an immense challenge. Work in this area typically addresses the application of usability–engineering methods, including advances in the remote recording and analysis of end-user interactions with web-based systems.

3.2 The Social Consequences Of The Internet

The Internet has permeated almost all facets of life. The societal transformations are likely to be immense and somewhat unpredictable. Much has been written about the potential consequences and promises in the area of healthcare (Shortliffe 1998). Education is another arena in which the Internet is likely to produce profound changes. The new networking technologies not only afford great opportunities for distance learning, but are also beginning to have a substantial impact in the classroom. Perhaps this impact is most strongly felt in science education, where new tools allow instant access to a wealth of information resources plus collaboration with peers and experts (Linn et al. 1998). New computer mediated collaborative learning paradigms are beginning to emerge (Koschmann 1996). However, the benefits of such an approach over traditional classroom practices has yet to be clearly established.

How does Internet use affect social and psychological well being? Kraut and colleagues (Kraut et al. 1998) studied 93 families (256 individuals) who were provided with free Internet access for two years in Pittsburgh. The results indicate that as people used the Internet more, they reported communicating with fewer friends and spent less time with their families. These subjects also experienced more stress, reported feeling more lonely and depressed even though interpersonal communication was their most important reason for using the Internet. The authors concluded that despite the remarkable advantages afforded by this new medium, it could cause too much disengagement from real life. Individuals need to moderate their use of this technology and endeavor to strike an appropriate balance.

4. Requirements For New Human Abilities

If information becomes more readily accessible in the near future, will the need to engage in effortful learning be diminished? If answers to questions can be obtained more easily through the Internet, will it be as important to have such knowledge in one’s head? Many scientists believe that diminishing one’s knowledge base or skills is inappropriate despite these new technologies for knowledge access. Individuals will have to be capable of discerning relevant from irrelevant information (filtering) and interpreting information within a particular context. A clear lesson from a number of years of cognitive science and artificial intelligence research is that prior knowledge critically shapes one’s perception of new information. In general, the better one’s understanding of the domain, the more useful and powerful informationfinding resources are likely to be.

Yet new skills for technology use are clearly needed. In the world of rapid technological change, no workplace has all the skills today that are going to be needed in 20 years from now. As a result, people have begun preparing for these new skills now, such that they are continually being updated with the changing society. Literacy will need to evolve continuously, since emerging technologies are increasingly part of the routine fabric of life.

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