The Cyber Effect (47 page)

Inside her classroom
: L. O'Neil, “Student's Selfie with Pregnant Teacher ‘in Labour' Goes Viral,”
cbc.​ca
, October 18, 2013.

“SELFIE-ISH”
: “SELFIE-ISH! My Photo with Brooklyn Bridge Suicide Dude,”
New York Post
(2013), reproduced in J. Jones, “Don't Hate the Woman Behind the ‘World's Worst Selfie,' ”
TheGuardian.​com
, December 5, 2013.

Narcissistic Personality Inventory
: R. N. Raskin and C. S. Hall (1979), “A Narcissistic Personality Inventory,”
Psychological Reports
45(2): 590; and R. Raskin and H. Terry (1988), “A Principal-Components Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and Further Evidence of Its Construct Validity,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
54(5): 890–902.

mirror-image stimulation
: G. G. Gallup (1977), “Self-Recognition in Primates: A Comparative Approach to the Bidirectional Properties of Consciousness,”
American Psychologist
32(5): 329–38, quotation from 330.

self-concept
: S. A. McLeod (2008), “Self Concept,”
Simply Psychology
, quoting from R. F. Baumeister (ed.) (1999),
The Self in Social Psychology
.
simply​psychology.​org
.

The isolates remained fascinated
: G. G. Gallup and M. K. McClure (1971), “Preference for Mirror-Image Stimulation in Differentially Reared Rhesus Monkeys,”
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
75(3): 403–7.

self-recognition
: B. Amsterdam (1972), “Mirror Self-Image Reactions Before Age Two,”
Developmental Psychobiology
5(4): 297–305; A. H. Schulman and C. Kaplowitz (1977), “Mirror-Image Response During the First Two Years of Life,”
Developmental Psychobiology
10(3):133–42.

He described self-concept
: C. R. Rogers (1959), “A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships, As Developed in the Client-Centered Framework,” in S. Koch (ed.),
Psychology: A Study of a Science. Study 1, Volume 3: Formulations of the Person and the Social Context
(New York: McGraw-Hill), 184–256.

“the cyber self”
: In the earliest days of digital presence, psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius presciently saw the need down the road for a conversation about the virtual self, given the beginnings of avatars and talk of migrating our identities and lives online. In an article written for
The Atlantic
in 1987, they described the appearance in the virtual world of the “Possible Self.”

as many “selves” as we have friends
: W. James (1892),
Psychology: Briefer Course
(New York: Henry Holt and Company), especially 179–80.

Presenting yourself to the world
: T. J. Scheff (1988), “Shame and Conformity:
The Deference-Emotion System,”
American Sociological Review
53(3): 395–406, especially 396.

Narcissus
: The earliest surviving versions of the story of Narcissus were thought to be related by Konon in Greek (
Narratives
, 24) and Ovid in Latin (
Metamorphoses
, Book III, 342–510). However, the unlikely survival of a papyrus from an Egyptian rubbish dump shows that the story was in circulation at least half a century earlier, in the mid–first century
B.C
.: D. Keys (2004), “The Ugly End of Narcissus,”
BBC History Magazine
5(5): 9.

identity versus role confusion
: S. McLeod (2013), “Erik Erikson,”
simplypsychology.​org
.

a significant increase in scores
: J. M. Twenge and J. D. Foster (2010), “Birth Cohort Increases in Narcissistic Personality Traits Among American College Students, 1982–2009,”
Social Psychological and Personality Science
1(1): 99–106.

parents who have overpraised their children
: E. Brummelman et al. (2015), “Origins of Narcissism in Children,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
112(12): 3659–62.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
: The story was first published in thirteen chapters in
Lippincott's
magazine in 1890. That version was rejected by Britain's biggest bookseller because of its sexual overtones, so a more muted, twenty-chapter version of the novel was published in 1891; even this was considered salacious enough to count against Wilde when he was put on trial for gross indecency in 1895. Incredibly, it was not until 2011 that the unexpurgated text was published. See the account of the book's early history on the British Library website.

Now there's a plethora of apps
: P. Samotin, “The 7 Best Photo Editing Apps to Look Better in Every Selfie,”
stylecaster.​com
, March 13, 2014.

“Youth is subjected by our civilization…”
: J. Zimmerman, “Schools Can't Stop Kids from Sexting. More Technology Can,”
nytimes.​com
, November 10, 2015.

These images are hacked and stolen
: C. Cullen, “ ‘Unless You Never Upload a Photo to Social Media Ever, You're Not Safe': Irish Teens Speak of Photo Hacking Horror,” Irish
Independent
, January 14, 2016.

rise in plastic surgery
: American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: “Selfie Trend Increases Demand for Facial Plastic Surgery,”
aafprs.​org
, March 11, 2014.

Online, social capital can be important
: C. Steinfield, N. B. Ellison, C. Lampe, and J. Vitak (2013), “Online Social Network Sites and the Concept of Social Capital,” in F. L. F. Lee et al. (eds.),
Frontiers in New Media Research
(New York: Routledge), 115–31; and N. Lin (1999), “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital,”
Connections
22(1): 28–51.

“I broke down in tears”
: T. Willis and A. Bevan, “Tallulah Willis Opens Up: Her Struggle with Substance Abuse and Self-Esteem,”
TeenVogue
, January 7, 2015.

boys and young men suffering from eating disorders
: D. Cox, “Are More Men Getting Eating Disorders?,”
The Guardian
, January 18, 2015.

“I was constantly in search”
: G. Aldridge and K. Harden, “Selfie Addict Took TWO HUNDRED a Day—and Tried to Kill Himself When He Couldn't Take Perfect Photo,”
mirror.​co.​uk
, March 23, 2014.

body dysmorphic disorder
: M. Tartakovsky (2013), “Body Dysmorphic Disorder: When the Reflection Is Revolting,” Psych Central, January 30, 2013.

a list of some common signs
: Mayo Clinic Staff (n.d.), “Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Symptoms and Causes,”
mayoclinic.​org

“self-actualization”
: C. R. Rogers (1951),
Client-Centered Therapy
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

“I find it easier to be myself on the Internet”
: S. Livingstone, L. Haddon, A. Görzig, and K. Ólafsson (2011), “Risks and Safety on the Internet: The Perspective of European Children. Full Findings and Policy Implications from the EU Kids Online Survey of 9–16 Year Olds and Their Parents in 25 Countries,” (London: LSE), 40.

“The digital self becomes less”
: C. Moss, “Men and Boys Are in Crisis, and Technology Is to Blame,”
The Telegraph
, May 10, 2015.

“There was absolutely nothing wrong”
: “Teens Threatened with ‘Sexting' Porn Charge Sue Prosecutor,”
The Independent
, March 26, 2009.

legal implications
: J. L. Barry (2010), “The Child as Victim and Perpetrator: Laws Punishing Juvenile ‘Sexting,' ”
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
13(1): 129–53.

“the production and dissemination”
: M. G. Leary (2010), “Sexting or Self-Produced Child Pornography—The Dialogue Continues…,”
Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law
17(3), 488.

In Australia, child pornography laws
: J. Tin, “More Than 450 Child Pornography Charges Laid Against Youths Aged 10 to 17 in Past Three Years,”
The Sunday Mail
(Qld), October 9, 2011.

incidence of sexting
: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (2008),
Sex and Tech: Results from a Survey of Teens and Young Adults
(Washington, DC).

half of all teenagers having sent a sext
: H. Strohmaier, M. Murphy, and D. DeMatteo (2014), “Youth Sexting: Prevalence Rates, Driving Motivations, and the Deterrent Effect of Legal Consequences,”
Sexuality Research and Social Policy
11(3): 245–55. See also the report on the Drexel study and surrounding issues by K. Wallace, “Chances Are, Your Teen Has Sexted,”
edition.​cnn.​com
, January 2, 2015.

In their seminal article
: D. Finkelhor and J. Wolak, “Sext and Sensibility,”
huffingtonpost.​com
, July 11, 2012.

Jesse Logan
: M. Celizic, “Her Teen Committed Suicide Over ‘Sexting,' ”
today.​com
, March 6, 2009.

sextortion
: “Amanda Todd Suicide: RCMP Repeatedly Told of Blackmailer's Attempts,”
cbc.​ca/​news
, November 15, 2013.

a thirty-five-year-old man
: “Man Charged in Netherlands in Amanda Todd Suicide Case,”
BBC.​com
, April 18, 2014.

default privacy settings
: R. Gross and A. Acquisti, “Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks,” in Association for Computing Machinery,
WPES '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society
(Alexandria, VA, November 7, 2005), 71–80.

“privacy” concerns
: For more about online sharing, see E. Segran, “The Truth About Teenagers, the Internet, and Privacy,”
fastcompany.​com
, November 4, 2014.

Groupthink
: I. L. Janis (1971), “Groupthink,”
Psychology Today
5(3); reprinted in H. J. Leavitt, L. R. Pondy, and D. M. Boje (Eds) (1980),
Readings in Managerial Psychology
(3rd edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 432–44.

“There isn't a school in the United States”
: M. Martinez, “Sexting Scandal: Colorado High School Faces Felony Investigation,”
edition.​cnn.​com
, November 9, 2015.

“She was a 16-year-old California girl”
: K. Poulsen, “Pimps Go Online to Lure Kids into Prostitution,”
Wired
, February 25, 2009.

“He showed me the ropes”
: Y. Alcindor, “Sex Trafficking in the USA Hits Close to Home,”
usatoday30.​usatoday.​com
, September 27, 2012.

technology has created a new dimension
: M. P. Aiken and S. Chan (2015), “Cyber Criminology: Algorithmic
vs
. Heuristical Approaches for Analysis Within the Human Trafficking Domain,”
International Journal of Advancements in Technology
6(2); and S. Chan and M. P. Aiken, “Big Data to Big Insight for Human Trafficking: Analysis of Adaption Cycles for Digital Image Deployment on Online Classified Sites,” paper presented at White House Forum to Combat Human Trafficking (West Wing, Washington, DC), April 9, 2013.

online classified adult advertising
: “Tulsa Police: Online Escort Ads a Front for Prostitution,”
washington​times.​com
, August 17, 2015.

Backpage picked up where Craigslist left off
: B. Thompson, “Many Believe
Backpage.​com
Is Online Portal for Human Trafficking,”
miheadlines.​com
, March 16, 2014.

proceedings against Backpage
: E. Koh, “Dallas-Based Backpage.​com Faces
Civil Contempt Charges in Senate Sex-Trafficking Inquiry,”
The Dallas Morning News
, February 11, 2016.

While they supposedly can disappear
: V. Woollaston, “Gone but NOT Forgotten: ‘Deleted' Snapchat Photos Are Stored on Your Phone and Can Be Easily Downloaded, Forensics Firm Claims,”
dailymail.​co.​uk
, May 10, 2013.

the “science of love”
: H. Song et al. (2015), “Love-Related Changes in the Brain: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study,”
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
, February 13.

increase in online-dating-related rape
:
Emerging new threat in online dating: Initial trends in internet dating-initiated serious sexual assaults
, national
crimeagency.​gov.​uk
, February 7, 2016.

those who met on the Internet
: J. T. Cacioppo et al. (2013), “Marital Satisfaction and Break-ups Differ Across On-line and Off-line Meeting Venues,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
110(25): 10135–40.

online dating…$2.2 billion by 2015
: “Dating Services in the US: Market Research Report,”
ibisworld.​com
, April 2016.

heightened in the future
: S. Curtis, “DNA Matching and Virtual Reality: The World of Online Dating in 2040,”
The Telegraph
, November 27, 2015.

dating app Tinder
:
gotinder.​com
(2016).

“hidden desires and fears”
: R. U. Akeret (2000),
Photolanguage: How Photos Reveal the Fascinating Stories of Our Lives and Relationships
(London: W. W. Norton & Company).

Making a quick judgment
: N. Ellison, R. Heino, and J. Gibbs (2006), “Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment,”
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
11(2).

This is evolutionary reality
: P. M. Todd, L. Penke, B. Fasolo, and A. P. Lenton (2007), “Different Cognitive Processes Underlie Human Mate Choices and Mate Preferences,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
104 (38): 15011–16. See also N. Barber (1995), “The Evolutionary Psychology of Physical Attractiveness: Sexual Selection and Human Morphology,”
Ethology and Sociobiology
16(5): 395–424.

“desirability score”
: C. Macdonald, “What's YOUR Secret Tinder Score?: CEO Reveals App Has an ‘Internal Rating' Used to Select Matches,”
dailymail.​co.​uk
, January 11, 2016.

impression management
: “Impression management is an active self presentation of a person aiming to enhance his image in the eyes of others”: J. B. P. Sinha (2008),
Culture and Organizational Behaviour
(New Delhi: Sage Publications), 104. The theory started with Erving Goffman (1959),
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
(New York: Anchor). He used the metaphor of a theatrical performance to explain how we present ourselves and attempt to guide the impressions others form about us.

what kind of profile photographs
: K. Lee, “The Research and Science Behind Finding Your Best Profile Picture,”
blog.​bufferapp.​com
, March 25, 2015.

“Squinch”
: P. Hurley (2013),
“It's All About the Squinch!”
YouTube.​com
.

A famous case of…
identity deception
: The Alex/Joan story was originally reported by L. Van Gelder, “The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover,”
Ms
. magazine, October 1985. For more about online communication and impression management, see A. Chester and D. Bretherton (2007), “Impression Management and Identity Online,” in A. Joinson et al. (eds.), The
Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press), 223–36. On deception, see M. Whitty and A. Joinson (2009),
Truth, Lies and Trust on the Internet
(New York: Routledge).

catfishing
:
Catfish
(2011), the original documentary, was directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. The story's protagonist later wrote a book about his experiences with advice for the millions of viewers of his MTV show,
Catfish
, on approaching digital relationships: N. Schulman (2014),
In Real Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age
(New York: Hachette). On the evolution of the term
catfishing
, see A. Harris, “Who Coined the Term ‘Catfish'?,”
Slate.​com
, January 18, 2013.

trolls
: Research identifies the characteristics of trolling as “aggression, deception, disruption, and success.” See C. Hardaker (2010), “Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication: From User Discussions to Academic Definitions,”
Journal of Politeness Research
6: 215–42.

A smart solution to catfishing
: N. Lomas, “Dating App Newbie Blume Wants to Kill Catfishing with Ephemeral Selfies,”
techcrunch.​com
, January 16, 2016.

“We're definitely not trying to be sexist”
: A. Shontell, “What It's Like to Found a $750 Million Startup, Go Through a Sexual-Harassment Lawsuit, and Start All Over by Age 25,”
uk.​business​insider.​com
, January 27, 2015.

dark tetrad of personality
: E. E. Buckels, P. D. Trapnell, and D. L. Paulhus (2014), “Trolls Just Want to Have Fun,”
Personality and Individual Differences
67: 97–102.

“narcissistic personality disorder”
:
mayoclinic.​org
, November 18, 2014.

“assign their first born child”
: The June 2014 experiment was carried out for the Finnish ethical computer security company F-Secure. The company notes drily that “while terms and conditions are legally binding—it is contrary to public policy to sell children in return for free services, so the clause would not be enforceable in a court of law.” See F-Secure (2014),
Tainted Love: How Wi-Fi Betrays Us
,
f-​secure.​com
.

It is well known in military psychology
: M. Coeckelbergh, “War from a Distance: The Ethics of Killer Robots,”
E-International Relations
, June 16, 2014. Coeckelbergh points out that distance blunts our sense of responsibility. At a distance, “the natural moral-psychological barrier to killing is removed. There is no place for empathy, no knowledge of the suffering one causes, and the distance between killer and target seems unbridgeable.” For an in-depth study of this phenomenon, see D. Grossman (1996),
The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
(New York: Back Bay Books), section III.

The hacking of Ashley Madison
: A. Krasodomski-Jones, “Role Play and Bubble Baths: Analysing the Ashley Madison Hack,”
wired.​co.​uk
, September 7, 2015.

a Facebook affair or cyber-infidelity
: J. Insley, “Cyber Affairs Cited in Breakdown of Real Marriages,”
theguardian.​com
, May 27, 2009.

cyber-infidelity is a burgeoning area of the law
: A. Feldstein, “Is Cybersex Grounds for Divorce?,”
huffingtonpost.​com
, March 10, 2014.

outcomes of virtual distractions and disloyalties
: J. P. Schneider, R. Weiss, and C. Samenow (2012), “Is It Really Cheating?: Understanding the Emotional Reactions and Clinical Treatment of Spouses and Partners Affected by Cybersex Infidelity,”
Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity. The Journal of Treatment and Prevention: Cyber Sex
19(1–2): 123–39.

cyber-jealousy of Giuseppe Castro
: S. Nelson, “Jealous husband ‘decapitated his wife over online affair,' ”
dailymail.​co.​uk
, April 3, 2009.

LovePlus
and its sequels
: B. Bosker, “Meet the World's Most Loving Girlfriends—Who Also Happen to Be Video Games,”
huffingtonpost.​com
, January 25, 2014.

people can form real and authentic emotional attachments to virtual characters
: M. Coulson, J. Barnett, C. J. Ferguson, and R. L. Gould (2012), “Real Feelings for Virtual People: Emotional Attachments and Interpersonal Attraction in Video Games,”
Psychology of Popular Media Culture
1(3): 176–84.

nearly 40 percent of Japanese men and women
: Y. Wakatsuki (2015), “Middle-aged Virgins: Why So Many Japanese Stay Chaste,”
edition.​cnn.​com
, June 24, 2015.

“These days, insecure in our relationships”
: S. Turkle (2011),
Alone Together:
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
(New York: Basic Books).

“Strangely enough, our brains don't seem to care…”
: C. Malkin, “How Technology Makes Us Afraid of Intimacy,”
huffing​tonpost.​com
, November 23, 2012.

but less actual contact sex
: T. Wayne, “With Some Dating Apps: Less Casual Sex Than Casual Text,”
New York Times
, November 7, 2014.

The field of cyber-love and robotics
: G. Gurley, “Is This the Dawn of the Sexbots? (NSFW),”
Vanity Fair
, April 2015.

unusual step of creating an urgent “term of condition”
: R. Patel, “Do Not Have Sex with Our Robots, Japanese Firm Warns Users,”
International Business Times
, September 28, 2015.

“Pixar took a lesson from
Tin Toy
”: J. Hsu, “Why ‘Uncanny Valley' Human Look-Alikes Put Us on Edge,”
Scientific American
, April 3, 2012.

Uncanny Valley
: M. Mori (1970), “The Uncanny Valley,”
Energy
7(4): 33–35; trans. K. F. MacDorman and N. Kageki,
Spectrum
, June 12, 2012. For Mori's reflections on the “Uncanny Valley” phenomenon, see recent interview with him by N. Kageki, “An Uncanny Mind: Masahiro Mori on the Uncanny Valley and Beyond,”
Spectrum
, June 12, 2012,
spectrum.​ieee.​org
.

he first experienced what he described as an “eerie sensation”
: M. Mori describes how he became aware of the Uncanny Valley in
Uncanny Valley Revisited: Masahiro Mori
, International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Tokyo International Exhibition Centre, Japan, November 6, 2013:
YouTube.​com
, November 20, 2013.

Even monkeys appear to have an Uncanny Valley reflex
: S. A. Steckenfinger and A. A. Ghazanfar (2009), “Monkey Visual Behavior Falls into the Uncanny Valley,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
106(43): 18362–66,
pnas.​org
.