Disembodiment on the Internet as a New Form of Technological Self-Alienation (Based on the Study of Students of Humanitarian Institutes of Higher Education)

Abstract

Phenomenon of disembodiment of users of information technologies in virtual reality, in particular as a special form of self-alienation, was already noted by the first representatives of cyber culture. However, psychologists have not properly analyzed it yet, perhaps, due to the usual peripheral position of the problem of disembodiment of a physical body in psychology. In the present study we continue to develop our theoretical and empirical construct of the Disembodiment on the Internet (N.V. Kopteva, A.Yu. Kalugin, L.Ya. Dorfman) as a psychological impact of the use of contemporary information technologies in areas related to self-alienation and alienation. The construct is based on the conception of unembodiment of the mental self from the body by a British psychiatrist R. Laing, which is considered to be one of the fundamental psychiatric conceptions of disembodiment of the physical self. R. Laing’s description of the ‘detachment’ of schizoids from their own body helps understand the specifics of existential positions of embodiment - disembodiment determined by sociocultural, technological factors and choices made by individuals themselves. Our study was performed on a sample of active Internet users - students of humanitarian institutes of higher education (aged from 17 to 25 years) - with the use of the Disembodiment on the Internet diagnostic procedure. We revealed groups that differentiated in the severity of disembodiment and created their psychological portraits according to patterns of disembodiment, which include experience of unbodiliness of the virtual self, incompleteness and secondariness of the technological way of being limited by the Internet environment and Internet addiction. We also empirically detected the effects of disembodiment on the alienation of students in different aspects of their life (from who they are, from their families, in interpersonal communication, from their studies and the society) ranging from ‘vegetativeness’ to adventurism.