Saturday, May 16, 2009

Cyberloafing

Cyberloafing means a type of job neglect (Bennett and Naumann, 2004). sending and receiving mail, surfing in the net for personal purpose during the office hours is called Cyberloafing. Cyberloafing leads the employees to harm or to disturb the organizational productivity. Research study shows 64 percent of the people surfing the net for personal usage during the office hours (The Straits Times, 2000).Cyberloafing can cause other problems such as bandwith clogging,spyware infection, and task postponement (Levoie and Pychyl, 2001). If you are reading this article during your office hours you may call as a cyberloafer. Cyberloafing also called as Cyberslacking.

Cyberloafing activities including personal emailing, instant messaging,and visiting news websites. Finding suggested, there are some positive impact on employees when they do job related surfing. Emailing and other non-job related leads to negative impact. Research results showed cyberloafing is common for men than women.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

On-line Behavior

The time spent on-line by the net users gradually goes on increasing. Since the presence of unexplored websites ignites the users natural curiosity and encourage the search for information. It motivates insatiable search which may cause some type of compulsive behavior. The outcome is generally the increased feelings of loneliness and depression (Kraut, et, al, 1998). The online behavior start showing dependency of cyberspace and manifests withdrawal symptoms as well. There is no difference in the online. Student or Proffessor, whoever it is having the equal footing on the net. If it is online the behavior also can change. Some people wants to hide their identity. I read one article. It says the close friend of one student cheated her through internet. If it is a student he wants to act as a teacher in the online. like that some individuals are acting as opposite people or hiding their originality or showing different personality from their nature. Psychologists says there are some psychological factors behind these type of online behavior.

Psychology of Internet

The Internet has become an inevitable part in human endeavor. It has minimized the geographical boundaries between countries and seen as facilitator for every spheres of human growth and development. The number of web users’ world wide is estimated as 513 million and it is on the increase as well. Space and time get redefined it’s meaning in the internet world. This new environment has its own characteristics dominated by unique human behavior which has shown dramatic changes in the expression of personality, motivation, and emotions. When a person is connecting himself to the internet his behavior becomes on-line. The on-line behavior is significantly different from the real life behavior. It is an unreal universe and a soluble tissue of nothingness. The internet users say and do things in cyberspace that they would not ordinarily say or do in the face – to – face world. The internet realm enables the internet users to be open in their expressions due to uninhibited feelings. At times they share personal things about themselves, express dark emotions, fears and wishes or show unusual acts of affection, kindness and magnanimity. The usage of language in cyberspace is amazing. It shows a paradigm shift as offensive language; inconsiderate criticisms, anger, hatred and threats are common in this space. It can be asserted that the quality of life of internet users is changing at a rapid pace (Stroll, 1995). The citizens using internet facility, are given a new term of ‘netizens’ or ‘digital citizens’ (Katz, 1997). Like social etiquettes of society, netizens have their netiquettes in e-environment. These new advancements in the present cyber age are bound to have related impact in the psychological sphere of human life.