| What
is Psychotechnology?
Cyberspace is no accident. It's
a psychological location in time and space - a
milestone in evolution - created through adaptation,
psychological need, and social complicity. Humans
have craved a "cyberspace" ever since the first
stone was raised and recognized as a tool. Technology
has finally evolved to be able to supply the means
to enter this space. We are in the process of
adapting ourselves to an electronic environment
that will dramatically change the emotional, psychological
and social definitions of who we are.
Technology has brought a shift
in the basic human metaphor, effecting individual
lives as well as cultures. Theorists like Steve
Mizrach talk about today's "cyborg anthropology"
where technology has already invaded the human
body through things such as prosthetics, implants,
artificial organs, and modifications made by drugs
and plastic surgery. "In the future," Mizrach
writes, "it may be the case that all of us become
cyborgs to some extent, replacing what nature
gave us with technological improvements". Accordingly,
popular culture is filled with human-machine hybrids,
from Power Rangers to Robocops to Forest Gump's
Lieutenant Dan. Lieutenant Dan is a particularly
interesting combination of human-and-machine.
In the film, the Lieutenant receives prosthetic
legs that enable him to make a dramatic entrance
to Forest's wedding. In the production of the
film, the double amputee was not created by shrapnel
but by digital tampering which erased his "real"
legs.
 Possibly
the most widespread example of cyborg anthropology
is when human life is conducted inside a machine
without any physical or biological presence. Human
life is altered, appearing as an electronic simulation
residing on a screen. In other words, the internet.
At this point we face a linguistic
void. How do we identify cyborg anthropology?
Are there psychological boundaries between the
endpoint of reality and the beginning of virtuality?
Are we witnessing the birth pangs of a new human
psychosocial identity?
Leo Marx, Professor of American
Cultural History at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and author of Does technology drive
history? maintains that new terms in language
emerge when there is a social void. We identify
a concept because we need to, whether or not it
has existed before that point in history. Thus
concepts like computer virus, icebox, electricity,
and internet were coined at a specific point in
time because there was no previous social need
to compel its usage.
Psychotechnology represents
a new phenomenon in search of an identifier. The
concept of psychotechnology emerges from the need
to describe and codify human behavior in the electronic
environment. It constitutes a "new" psychology,
where patterns of interaction evolve from electronic
concepts rooted in simulation. Commonly-used terms
such as community, self, and identity take on
new meaning when paired with virtual, online,
or electronic. Our roles as individuals, community
members, netizens, facilitators, and mental health
professionals shift along with the often tenuous
landscape of cyberspace.
What happens when you merge
two disciplines like psychology and technology?
As history has so clearly demonstrated, dramatic
changes in technology lead to dramatic changes
in human behavior. Consider the impact of technological
innovations such as the development of writing
in Mesopotamia, circa 3000 BC; the Greek discovery
of using marble columns in architecture, circa
5 BC; Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing
press in the mid 1400s; James Watts' construction
of the first steam engine in Scotland during the
1760s; and the availability of television in the
late 1940s. What would life be like without that
technology? Present technological innovation in
the Age of Information is ushering in a race of
potential cyborgs created from physical and psychological
mergers with machines. Along with this new exposure
to cybernetic experiences comes psychological
changes - significant alterations in how we view
ourselves, our objects, and our realities.
The need for a psychotechnology
is upon us.
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