Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
2.427 words
Contents
Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet ...................................................... 1
Facebook as a Cyberpsychological Testing Ground............................................................................... 2
Media Equation – the Anthropomorphisation of Technology .................................................................. 5
Fundamental Human Characteristics Cause Riskier Online Behaviour.................................................. 7
Falling for Social Engineering Tricks is All Too Human .......................................................................... 8
Why Cyberpsychology in IT Security? .................................................................................................. 10
Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the
Influence of the Internet
—and what this means for IT security
The Internet has become today’s defining medium and considerably influences the behaviour of many
people. Our experiences in social media, our relationships with devices like smartphones, tablets and
laptops, and the ways in which our immediate physical environment is being artificially expanded by
“cyberspace“, are all part and parcel of the field of “mediapsychology”. What are social apps, online
videos, Internet communities, online shops and chat forums doing to us? If, in the 1960s, TV was
postulated as a “second-hand reality”, what effect will the increasing electronic networking of humanity
with a variety of increasingly intelligent technologies and devices have? Are our online lives riskier
than our real ones? Do we need digital risk literacy? Could some of us already be cyberpsychos?
Kaspersky Lab researched this question in collaboration with Professor Dr Frank Schwab and Dr
Astrid Carolus from the Institute for Media Psychology at the University of Würzburg.
There can no longer be any doubt that the networking of the world via computers, smartphones and
tablets has a considerable influence on our lives. People shop from the comfort of their own homes.
Families and friends keep in touch with one another, even across large distances, by means of social
apps like WhatsApp, or via social networks like Facebook. The Internet has become the key
component in human communication and interaction. Lovers meet online, and customers pay via the
web—but are also robbed by cybercriminals. Even new, digital currencies have been created, like the
online currency Bitcoin, which is now a target for digital bank robbers [1]. Although our online activities
reflect typical human behaviour, technology still adds new aspects to our lives, both as individuals and
as societies.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
The term “cyberpsychology” has been coined, related to the term “cyberspace”. This field of research
focuses on what people do online and why. More precisely, it examines our feelings, thoughts and
behaviour towards digital media.
Facebook as a Cyberpsychological Testing Ground
A social network like Facebook is, from a cyberpsychological perspective, an exciting topic—and one
which lends itself to investigation using new methods. Field research which, until now, has required
extensive surveys involving hundreds, or even thousands, of people, is now at our fingertips. And the
best part? The test subjects are all volunteers. Or, at least, most of them are.
In June 2014, a study carried out by Cornell University and the University of California in San
Francisco was published. For this study, Facebook had secretly manipulated the contents of the start
pages of almost 700,000 English-speaking users [2]. For a week, the uninformed test subjects were
shown overwhelmingly positive or negative posts from friends in order to discover how this affected
their moods. Users who saw mainly positive entries posted more positive status updates themselves.
Those who saw primarily negative entries posted mainly negative entries themselves. The results
indicate that emotions displayed on Facebook can influence our own emotions—or at least, that the
subjects’ communications were influenced by their feelings.
Another interesting study involving Facebook and psychology was published at the end of 2013. This
research was carried out by a team headed by Andrew Schwartz, Johannes Eichstädt and Margaret
Kern from the University of Pennsylvania, who used language analysis to examine the status updates
posted by 75,000 Facebook members [3]. Using their “Open Vocabulary” technique, the psychologists
were able to produce precise psychograms containing age, gender and typical personality
characteristics. The results also included extremely revealing word clouds that the researchers could
use to predict a Facebook member’s gender.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 1: Personality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary
Approach; H. Andrew Schwartz, Johannes C. Eichstaedt and Margaret L. Kern et al.:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073791]
Facebook is, in general, a rich source of information for cyberpsychology. Researchers have, for
example, also shown that emotions can be transferred from one member to another. This effect has
been called emotional contagion [4] by Jeff Hancock at Cornell University. In order to study this,
researchers took 689,003 (anonymised) Facebook comments, broke them down and used a database
of 122 million words to show that emotional expressions between friends can be predicted.
An infographic [5] summarises a whole range of thought-provoking facts and theories pertaining to the
global social community. It states, for example, that Facebook can become addictive and that, since
2000, networking via smartphones has reduced the human attention span to less than that of a
goldfish.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 2 // Source: Nowsourcing (2012): http://visual.ly/facebook-psychology-addiction-affecting-ourminds]
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 3 // Caption: Humans also interact emotionally with technical devices]
Media Equation – Threating Computers as Humans
Cyberpsychology, of course, deals not with the behaviour of machines, but with the behaviour of
people in an increasingly media-defined world. In some cases, this behaviour can be very interesting.
People are incredibly bad at communicating with machines. How many users have cursed their
computers, perhaps even pounding their fists on the keyboard, when a device failure caused hours’
worth of work to disappear into a digital black hole? In some circumstances, all it takes is a broken
automatic door to trigger an extremely human reaction.
Psychologists Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass call this effect the “Media Equation” [6]. As soon as
something—like a software package, for example—seems to interact with a person, ancient scripts are
triggered in our brains. Almost instinctively, we treat the object like a conscious, reasoning being. This
equation of media devices with living creatures is known by media psychologists as the media
equation [7]. It’s a phenomenon that enables us to hate computers, even though we know that they
are just machines, incapable of deliberately annoying us.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 4 // Caption: Kaspersky infographic: The Media Equation, or the relationship between human
beings and technology]
The basic psychological patterns of human behaviour, which are "hard-wired" into our brains and
which were formed around 1.8 million years ago in the Pleistocene era, are now being confronted by a
new, very interactive media space. Many features of this digital media space are completely
unfamiliar, and we must first learn how to interact with them. One way would be to develop a Brain
2.0, which would be better able to cope with these challenges. This is, however, not something that
will happen overnight, as our synapses are too well-rooted. Alternatively, we can try to remember that
we are, unfortunately, incapable of rational behaviour when dealing with machines, and learn certain
behaviour patterns by heart. Many emotional situations can be avoided if we can acquire a better
understanding of those we deal with (including computers). Outbursts of rage are not usually our
computers’ fault; after all, they behave entirely predictably. Instead, we, the users, are to blame. This
also applies to security-relevant behaviour. We cannot prevent our brains, which have been shaped by
evolution, from reacting in certain ways. With a little knowledge of the threats (Online Risk Literacy
[8]), however, we can avoid a great many hazards.
[Image 5 // Caption: The two faces of today’s Internet user]
Fundamental Human Characteristics Cause Riskier Online
Behaviour
In experiments testing the risk awareness of Internet users, three key concepts recur over and over
again: disinhibition, an overly optimistic view of one’s own vulnerability (optimism bias), and the need
to belong [8]. Today’s researchers are still feeling their way in determining the behaviour patterns. For
example, researchers Fogel and Nehmad [9] carried out a study among college students to determine
whether there is a correlation between the existence of a network profile and users’ willingness to take
risks. The results clearly show that such a correlation exists.
Media psychologists Schwab and Carolus carried out a literature study [8] on the topic of
cyberpsychology and online security. They add that, to some extent, users are simply overwhelmed by
the bombardment of information they now face and that they fall back on feelings and trial-and-error
methods, thus acting less rationally than we usually (want to) believe.
Parents are, of course, particularly interested in their children’s online activities, with many concerned
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
that their little ones are facing online risks.
As you would expect, there are a large number of studies on this topic. One long-term study was
carried out in Belgium. The most significant finding, and one which is supported by other studies, gives
us hope: at first glance, children and young people are very sensible. The study [10] was carried out
among 10,000 schoolchildren in classes 4-6. Both contact risks (like the risk of contacting strangers),
and content risks (including the risk of viewing shocking websites) were determined. According to the
study, 4.5 percent of children admitted to having met in person someone they "befriended" via the
Internet. Here, perspective is important. 45 children out of 1,000 meeting strangers is, of course, 45
children too many. This study, however, helps us to identify the children taking excessive risks. Would
the same number of children take this risk if they didn't have access to the Internet? In their free time,
for example? An analysis by Kaspersky Lab [11] supports the assumption that children are, to some
extent, exposed to inappropriate Internet content. The IT security experts identified the inappropriate
sites accessed most often by children during the period from January to May 2014. In most countries,
websites with pornographic and erotic content were by far the most popular.
[Image 6 // Caption: Children and young people can be reckless online]
Falling for Social Engineering Tricks is All Too Human
New technologies also require new words. Like “phishing”, for example [12]. The word is related to
“fishing” and describes a method used by cybercriminals to target important user data. During
phishing, cybercriminals don’t target computers. Instead, they use sophisticated emails and fake
websites to “hack" the people behind them.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 7 // Caption: Phishing is a classic social engineering trick]
In social engineering, criminals exploit fundamental patterns in the human psyche. Trust is one such
pattern. A basic level of trust is tremendously important for the psychological development of any
human being. If everything goes according to plan, we develop this at the beginning of our lives. It is a
prerequisite for forming deep relationships with other people, allowing you, for example, to trust your
family and friends. We tend to trust familiar people—even if we only know them from TV, for
example—more than unfamiliar ones.
Authority also has to do with trust. We tend to trust authority figures. After all, they know what they’re
doing! We will, for example, be more likely to believe an email that seems to come from our company’s
own IT department, even though we don’t know the sender personally.
Our desire to help others and our desire to belong are both examples of fundamental human
characteristics [8]. Probably the most famous example of exploiting our desire to help others involves
what’s known as the Nigerian spam email. In such cases, spurious Nigerian princes send emails to
random Internet users, in which they profess to need help transferring large sums of money abroad.
Promising to pay these users a percentage of the money for their help, they swindle gullible recipients
out of the "processing fees" they advance in order to facilitate the transfers. The promised fortunes,
however, never arrive. One example from last year illustrates the social engineering aspect: criminals
claimed to be members of the International Red Cross involved in the Syria conflict and sent users
emails appealing for help [13].
An analysis carried out by Kaspersky Lab of the targets of financially motivated phishing attacks
shows that users of social networks were the most heavily targeted in 2013. More than one in three
attacks took place on Facebook or a similar site. [14]. Apparently, we feel more secure in these
networks because we imagine ourselves to be surrounded by friends. This makes us easier victims.
Finally, cybercriminals also exploit our fundamental human curiosity. New things interest us; we want
to reveal the concealed. We are curious about the contents of attachments, or the pages behind the
links in texts or messages. Often, these are dangerous links or infected PDF attachments—but by the
time we realize this, it is usually too late.
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[Image 8 // Caption: In 2013, more than one-third of all phishing attacks targeted Facebook and similar
sites.]
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University published the findings of their phishing studies in 2010
[15]. These showed that there were differences between the sexes. On average, 54.7 percent of
women clicked on phishing emails, compared to 49 percent of men. The researchers identified
differing levels of education on Internet technologies as the cause [16]. They discovered that
educating users did actually help: after receiving training on phishing, the average percentage of
phishing victims fell from 47 to 28 percent.
Digital education is both practical and essential. This is also shown by the simple fact that experienced
Internet users tend to fall for fewer fraud attempts by cybercriminals, as well as being generally more
cautious in cyberspace.
Why Cyberpsychology in IT Security?
Cybercriminals earn a great deal of money from their activities. These criminals are no longer mere
teenagers programming a virus here and there in their spare time. Instead, cybercrime has become an
industry, one which is ingenious when it comes to exploiting human weaknesses. How, though, can
we combat this if we don't know what these weaknesses are and why we have them? Ten years ago,
the world was a simpler place: a new piece of malware came onto the market, was discovered by
researchers, and virus protection software prevented its execution.
Today, Kaspersky’s systems detect 315,000 new malware varieties each day, and the criminal
industry is working full steam ahead. Security software recognises malware programs by their
behaviour, prevents the execution of unknown programs, and is much more evolved than it was just a
few years ago. It cannot, however, prevent users from transferring money to or sharing their credit
card details with supposed “friends”. Nor can it prevent a gamer in the heat of battle from ignoring all
security warnings and installing a harmful patch, believing that it will bring them victory.
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[Image 9 // Caption: Users in gaming mode are psychologically vulnerable]
Kaspersky Lab’s mission is to ensure a more secure Internet. In order to do this, we have to
understand why people behave in certain ways. Every user needs to understand that his or her
psyche can play tricks on him or her. This understanding of human behaviour is one of the keys to
secure Internet usage today. The more the IT security industry and users know, therefore, the more
difficult it will be for criminals to exploit our human failings.
Kaspersky Lab has put together information on the Media Equation, Social Engineering, Gender
Differences and Gaming from the perspectives of cyberpsychology and IT security. This information
can be found at: www.kaspersky.com/cyberpsychology
Sources:
[1]
https://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792331/Financial_cyber_threats_in_2013_Part_2_malware
[2] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full
[3] http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073791/ Personality,
Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach; H. Andrew
Schwartz, Johannes C. Eichstaedt, Margaret L. Kern, Lukasz Dziurzynski, Stephanie M. Ramones,
Megha Agrawal, Achal Shah, Michal Kosinski, David Stillwell, Martin E. P. Seligman, Lyle H. Ungar,
September 25 (2013)
[4] http://www.bps.org.uk/news/facebook-and-emotional-contagion
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Article: Cyberpsychology—Our Psyche Under the Influence of the Internet
[5] Facebook Psychology: Is Addiction Affecting Our Minds?; NowSourcing (2012):
http://visual.ly/facebook-psychology-addiction-affecting-our-minds
[6] Media Equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Media_Equation
[7] http://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/1575860538.shtml / The Media
Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places.
Cambridge University Press; Reeves, B., & Nass, C. (1996).
[8] Perceived Online Safety – Current state of research & desiderata; F. Schwab & A. Carolus (2013)
[9] Internet social network communities: Risk taking, trust, and privacy concerns. Computers in Human
Behavior / Fogel and Nehmad (2009)
[10] http://users.ugent.be/~mvalcke/CV/unsafe_2011.pdf / M. Valcke, B. De Wever, H. Van Keer, T.
Schellens: Long-term study on safe Internet use in young children; in: Computers & Education 57
(2011) p. 1292-1305, Gent/Belgien 2011, Elsevier Verlag
[11] http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2014/Children-and-the-Internet-the-Problem-ofUndesirable-Content
[12] http://www.securelist.com/en/glossary?letter=80#gloss153653685
[13] http://www.kaspersky.com/de/about_kaspersky/news/spam/2013/Nigeria-Scam-Welle_aus_Syrien
[14]
https://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792330/Financial_cyber_threats_in_2013_Part_1_phishing
and
http://newsroom.kaspersky.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/de/Downloads/Pictures_etc._NOT_for_Media_se
ction/Kaspersky_Lab_infographics_financial_phishing_targets_2013.jpg
[15] http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/pap1162-sheng.pdf / Steve Sheng, Mandy Holbrook, Ponnurangam
Kumaraguru, Lorrie Cranor, Julie Downs: Who Falls for Phish? A Demographic Analysis of Phishing,
Susceptibility and Effectiveness of Interventions, Carnegie Mellon University (2010)
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediation_%28statistics%29
About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is
ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more
than 16-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital
security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company
registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the
globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2012. The rating was published in
the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2013–2017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242618, August 2013). The report
ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2012.
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