Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.51 (558 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0393340546 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-06-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The first scrutiny of the virtual world’s transformative power on our psychology, Virtually You demonstrates how real life is being reconfigured in the image of a chat room, and how our identity increasingly resembles that of our avatar.. Offline, too, we’re becoming impatient, unfocused, and urge-driven. an enlightening and cautionary exploration of an increasingly intrusive aspect of modern society." Booklist While the Internet can enhance well-being, Elias Aboujaoude has spent years treating patients whose lives have been profoundly disturbed by it. "Instantly engaging and eminently accessible . Part of the danger lies in how the Internet allows us to act with exaggerated confidence, sexiness, and charisma. Aboujaoude dubs this new self our “e-personality” and argues that its traits are too potent to be confined online. Virtually You draws from Aboujaoude’s personal and professional experience to highlight this new phenomenon
He lives in San Francisco. . Elias Aboujaoude, MD, a Stanford University psychiatrist, earned an MD from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley
Whether in rekindled romances facilitated by Facebook friendship or outraged ventings of opinion on a blog, offline selves are being influenced by online personae in ways society has yet to fully comprehend. --Carol Haggas . Equally hard-to-control character traits, such as narcissism and grandiosity, take on dangerous new meanings in one’s digital life, while video poker and one-click shopping elevate impulsive tendencies to uncontrollable levels, and avatars in parallel cyber-universes allow for the creation of alternate personalities. Ins
"The Pseudo-Self Feedback Loop" according to Ryan C. Holiday. Books of this ilk almost exclusively blow, which I guess makes how good this one is even more impressive. The premise of Virtually You is that the costs of the internet are felt away from the computer, far enough away that often we fail to recognize the link. It's a pretty straightforward book--he pinpoints five negative psychological forces enabled by the web and each gets a chapter: Grandiosity, Narcissism, Darkness, Regression, and Impulsivity. The point isn't that these things happen online, it's that they happen online in ways they c. "A Warning All Should Read" according to S. Spilka. I am deeply affected by this book, even though I am not addicted to the Internet (I am not on Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, etc.) Dr. Aboujaoude's warning in his conclusion is particularly chilling. Using Hobbes' description of our fate in "the state of nature" (i.e., without civilization) when the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," the good doctor warns that "the worst possible outcomes [Hobbes] feared have echoes in a medium he could not have imagined" (281).The Internet, which offers many good things t. "Wide Ranging, Interesting, Different, and Just a Little Scary" according to Book Fanatic. Virtually You is different from many books about the dangers of the Internet. Its focus is how our online habits are changing our personalities and affecting our offline behavior. It scared me a little and certainly made me think. This book covered a lot of ground, keeps you interested, and is well written and argued. It's just a good book that belongs in the library of anyone interested in how the Internet is changing us and our world.