DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-1-92-105

Psychological effects of information technology use in relation to ontological security and embodied self (based on the study of undergraduates of humanitarian faculties)^*

Nataliya V. Kopteva
Doctor of Psychology, Docent, Professor
of the Department of Practical Psychology

Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University,
24, Sibirskaya st., Perm, 614990, Russia;
e-mail: kopteva@pspu.ru
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1466-9453

The model of «normative» use of information technology (offered by V.A. Emelin, A.Sh. Tkhostov, E.I. Rasskazova) describes various psychological effects including changes of psychological boundaries and needs, and psychological dependence. The author of the article suggests that the list of such effects might contain disembodiment resulting from the lack of a person’s physical body due to their being on the aethyr and transformation of a person into an immaterial being (M. McLuhan). The new technological way of being-in-the-world is similar to a schizoid one, which R.D. Laing, a British psychologist and psychiatrist, relates to ontological insecurity, unembodiment (of the mental self in the body) and blurring of the existential boundaries between the «self» and «non-self». The authorial psychological construct of ontological security as a two-level system of experience, based on R.D. Laing’s conception, and authorial diagnostic procedures derived from this construct were used in the study. The first procedure was based on the principle of semantic differential «OS(SD)» and the second procedure was psychometric «OS(PM)». It was discovered that the group of students suffering from more pronounced consequences of normative use of mobile phones and prone to Internet-addicted behavior showed certain effect. It included a decline in manifestations of ontological security as experiencing existential props within and outside their selves, lower degree of existential antagonism (when existence is viewed as «a good life») and inflation of a false self linked to ontological insecurity and disembodiment. The analysis of the total sample revealed the selective nature of connections between the consequences of normative use of mobile phones and ontological security. In particular, a decline of the latter was associated with increasing changes in psychological borders. They involved the changes in the reflection of personal privacy during the expansion and erosion of the psychological borders, and the changes in the use of these conditions to simplify and secure communication with other people.

Keywords: ontological security, embodiment, changes of psychological boundaries, Internet addiction.

References

Chen, Y.F. and Peng, S.S. (2008). University students’ Internet use and its relationships with academic performance, interpersonal relationships, psychosocial adjustment, and self-evaluation. CyberPsychology & Behavior. Vol. 11, iss. 4, pp. 467–469. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.0128

Emelin, V.A., Rasskazova, E.I. and Tkhostov, A.Sh. (2012). Psikhologicheskie posledstviya razvitiya informatsionnykh tekhnologiy [Psychological effects of the development of information technology]. Natsional’nyy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal [National Psychological Journal]. No. 1(7), pp. 81–87.

Emelin, V.A., Tkhostov, A.Sh. and Rasskazova, E.I. (2012). Razrabotka i aprobatsiya metodiki otsenki izmeneniya psikhologicheskikh granits pri pol’zovanii tekhnicheskimi sredstvami (MIG–TS) [Development and validation of the technique for measurement of changes of psychological boundaries while using technical devices (TPB–TD)]. Psihologicheskie issledovaniya. No. 2(22). Available at: http://www.psystudy.ru/index.php/num/2012n2-22/655-emelin22.html (accessed 14.11.2019).

Yen, J.-Yu, Yen, C.-F., Chen, C.-S. et al. (2009). The association between adult ADHD symptoms and Internet addiction among college students: The gender difference. CyberPsychology & Behavior. Vol. 12, iss. 2, pp. 187–191. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2008.0113

K stoletiyu Marshalla Maklyuena (2011) [To the centenary of Marshall McLuhan]. Radio Svoboda. Available from: http://www.svoboda.org/a/24269535.html (accessed 22.06.2017).

Kopteva, N.V. (2015). Ontologicheskaya uverennost’ kak ekzistentsial’noe izmerenie psikhologicheskogo zdorov’ya [Ontological confidence as an existential dimension of psychological health]. Volochkov A.A., Kopteva N.V., Popov A.Yu. i dr. Aktivnost’, tsennostnaya napravlennost’ i psikhologicheskoe zdorov’e studenchestva [Volochkov A.A., Kopteva N.V., Popov A.Yu. et al. Activity, value orientation and psychological health of students]. Perm: PSHPU Publ., pp. 135–160.

Kopteva, N.V. (2017). Ontologicheskaya uverennost’ pri raznoy vyrazhennosti internet-zavisimogo povedeniya [Ontological security with different degrees of internet addiction disorder]. Sibirskiy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal [Siberian Journal of Psychology]. No. 65, pp. 6–21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17223/17267080/65/1

Laing, R.D. (2010). The divided self. An existential study in sanity and madness. London, UK: Penguin Books Publ., 218 p.

Laing, R.D. (2017). Raskolotoe «Ya». Fenomenologiya perezhivaniya i Rayskaya ptichka [The politics of experience and the bird of paradise]. Moscow: IOI Publ., 350 p.

Langle, A. (2006) Person: Ekzistentsial’no-analiticheskaya teoriya lichnosti, per. s nem. O. Larchenko [Person: Existential-analytic theory of personality, trans. from German by O. Larchenko]. Moscow: Genezis Publ., 159 p.

Malygin, V.L., Feklisov, K.A., Antonenko, A.A. et al. (2011). Internet-zavisimoe povedenie. Kriterii i metody diagnostiki [Internet-dependent behavior. Criteria and methods of diagnosis]. Moscow: MSUMD Publ., 32 p.

Rasskazova, E.I., Emelin, V.A. and Tkhostov, A.Sh. (2015). Diagnostika psikhologicheskikh posledstviy vliyaniya informatsionnykh tekhnologiy na cheloveka [Diagnostics of psychological effects of the impact of information technologies on a person]. Moscow: Akropol’ Publ., 115 p.

Rubinstein, S.L. (2000). Osnovy obschey psikhologii [Fundamentals of general psychology]. Saint-Petersburg: Piter Publ., 684 p.

Zhichkina, A.E. and Belinskaya, E.P. (2004). Strategii samoprezentatsii v Internet i ikh svyaz’ s real’noy identichnost’yu [Strategies for self-presentation on the Internet and their relationship to real identity]. Flogiston. Feb 14. Available at: http://flogiston.ru/articles/netpsy/strategy (accessed 14.11.2019).

Received 22.12.2019

For citation:

Kopteva N.V. [Psychological effects of information technology use in relation to ontological security and embodied Self (based on the study of undergraduates of humanitarian faculties)]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2020, issue 1, pp. 92–105 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-1-92-105

 

* The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research as part of the research project No 19-29-07046.