Online Communication Is Still Offline

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Much has been made of hypothesized psychological change via an online communication revolution. Specifically, e-mail and the World Wide Web are said to entail novel communication modes—virtual realities (VR)—that may induce change in behavior, emotion, cognition, and motivation. There is further elaboration of the salience for psychological change of the VR itself versus the nature of the content it conveys—assuming content can be decontextualized from VR, the psychological processes of the recipient as constructor of meaning, the sociohistorical moment, and so on. Yet the online communication revolution presents neither a new conception of reality—a virtual reality—nor a new VR technology (VRT).

The Construct of VR Is Old But Only Viewed as New. VR is implicated in the oldest and most basic pursuit of philosophy and philosophical psychology—epistemology. Is there an objective reality towards which one can virtually approach through sensation (cf., Hume) or reason (cf., Plato or Kant)? Is objective reality a priori an apocryphal conception masking what can’t be apperceived (cf., Hinduism-based texts), falling away through a succession of appearances (cf., Buddhism-based texts), or flying away before language clarification (cf., Wittgenstein)? If there is an objective reality, does mind preshape perception and cognition as VR experience, or is it the product of VR experience? These questions and attempts to answer them may reflect the angst of being in a world of ambiguous and tenuous meaning and stability as posited by existential philosophers.

In lay psychology, VR usually denotes approximating one’s notion of reality through self-reflection and reflection of the other. In one’s naive phenomenology, thinking and feeling about the past, present, and future underlines that VR as construct is anything but new. In fact, psychologists have long noted that varying conceptions of VR often become a basis for cooperation or conflict within the self or between self and other. Ultimately, conceptions of VR—under assault by alternative logics and rationalities that may be perceived as illogics and irrationalities—are girded only by faith and can become motive forces in the world’s sublime and evil moments. For example, to foster the sublime or attenuate evil—with mixed results at best—revolutionary movements target government, science, technology, art, society, and culture through engendering VRs as utopian mythologies.

The Construct of VRT Is Old But Only Viewed as New. Mental health intervention techniques have long constituted VRT via role-playing, psychodrama, hypnosis, meditation, cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies, psychochemotherapies, and tension-relaxation exercises. VRT also comprises ritual—above and beyond mental health intervention techniques—through the immersion in cultural experiences such as dance, drama, epics, myths, paintings, sculptures, and even computer-generated prostheses supporting intrapsychic processes. Moreover, VRTs have been espoused by purveyors of so-called “brainwashing,” “thought control,” neurolinguistic programming, and mass marketing geared towards commercial products and political candidates and policies.

Conclusion. The VRTs exemplified by online communication modes—e-mail and the World Wide Web—are as offline as past modes. They are as instantaneous or slow, as reality-approximate or reality-divergent, as immersion-

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imbued or not, as other modes. They in no way take us any closer to Objectivisim or Subjectivism, or for that matter, Heaven or Hell. Paeans to a brave new world may reflect the primary process of a sociology, not the psychology, of new technology.

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