Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology

JOURNAL: Personality and social psychology review,
AUTHORS:  Katelyn Y. A. McKenna andf John A. Bargh
SUMMARY:  Just as with most other communication breakthroughs before it, the initial media and popular reaction to the Internet has been largely negative, if not apocalyptic. For example, it has been described as “awash in pornography”, and more recently as making people “sad and lonely.” Yet, counter to the initial and widely publicized claim that Internet use causes depression and social isolation, the body of evidence (even in the initial study on which the claim was based) is mainly to the contrary. More than this, however, it is argued that like the telephone and television before it, the Internet by itself is not a main effect cause of anything, and that psy chology must move beyond this notion to an informed analysis of how social iden tity, social interaction, and relationship formation may be different on the Internet than in real life. 

CULTURAL REFERENCE:  Plan 9 from Outer Space (originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space, or simply known as Plan 9) is a 1959 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by Ed Wood. The film bills Bela Lugosi posthumously as a star, although silent footage of the actor had been shot by Wood for other, unfinished projects just before Lugosi's death in 1956.

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