**4. Positives and negatives of formal influence of cyberspace**

The usage of information technologies and especially communication in cyberspace has its positives but also negatives. Modern communication technologies, similarly to other tools, can act as a good servant but a bad master. It is very difficult today to find the borderline between these two polarities because the bound between us and them is so strong that we are more or less unable to reliably distinguish and realize how much they influence us. Middle-aged and older generation, having lived without the influence of modern media, is more likely to debate this than younger, or the so-called digital generation, as they were growing up surrounded by new technologies that became an inseparable part of their life. Therefore it is extremely important to learn to see the perspective, build up a mental a psychological protective barrier when approaching media, and distinguish positives from negatives in communication in cyberspace.

We can now speak more on positives and negatives of the four formal influenced areas (time, dimension, structure of thinking, and identification) in cyberspace:

1.Time. When we communicate in cyberspace, we experience enormous speeding up of information transfer, which nowadays reaches almost the speed of light. Then there is a huge increase of amount of information, which still grows exponentially. This means we can access almost any information quickly, but selecting and processing are more demanding and time-consuming, which lead to sketchiness. The lack of time further causes another effect—deprivation of time that should be dedicated to holiday, family, bringing up children, and so on. Paradoxically, one may be killing the time by surfing the Internet, chatting to friends, or sending emails simply to maintain the feeling of being engaged or belonging to a group. Besides this, information in cyberspace is not stored and communicated linearly, but hypertextually, in a fanlike pattern, which leads to favoritism of simultaneous time over linear time. With linear time being broken comes also lack of interest in the past, history, culture, and traditions but also indifference regarding the future. This is typical of the modern digital

**21**

*Cyberspace as a New Existential Dimension of Man DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88156*

> youth. Bauerlein [16] carried out research at high schools and universities in the USA and found out that year after year students are less and less aware of history and civic education, and generally their knowledge in subjects that have something to do with history is less and less adequate. Volko [17] carried a knowledge research at one of the Slovak universities and acquired a similar result, which he commented: "Quality of general knowledge is, mildly speaking, inadequate. Students that will in the future work in media, struggle when asked to say for example when Slovak National Uprising started, they cannot

2. Space. A positive aspect of communication in cyberspace is in its ability to defeat geographical locations. We can now communicate with someone who lives in Australia or the USA not only orally but also visually. We even can watch events happening in various places on the globe. This may bring its negative aspect we can lose the sense of value of the real surrounding, our homeland, traditions, and culture in a given place. With communication on the Internet, importance of such a place declines, and people lose their roots. The Internet and also globalization tear the bound between geographical location and social role. With no geographical and social roots, one can easily become homeless in cyberspace.

Cyberspace of electronic media does not only consist of online telecommunication or online tele-seeing of the world; it is a world of new opportunities in virtualization of reality. Virtualization of reality may take various modes of reality or creation of brand new, fantastic worlds. Communication, or contact with virtual worlds, brings some pros and some contrast. In playing games young people can learn manual and visual skills and learn about the world but also become completely

3.Structure of thinking. In communication within cyberspace, some structural changes in thinking and consequently in learning occur. Each media has its own semiotics, and the most fundamental media, for example, spoken word, found their new cultural epochs. Therefore, media are tools for our thinking and learning. Bystřický [18], for instance, says that "we also use different ways of thinking with increased use of technologies, not in terms of changing the actual availability of such abilities; we rather fundamentally alter strategy of their use." Thinking in cyberspace is influenced by discontinuity of images, short texts, and similar, which does not help us to train concentration and continual refinement of ideas. On the contrary, a text in a newspaper or book requires us to concentrate and pursue the logical chain of ideas that are expressed. Book and newspaper thus develop abstract and logically continual thinking, while television and especially the Internet nourish visual and discontinuous thinking. According to G. Sartori, image-based media, such as television and the Internet, alter the way we think, imagine, and learn. He is convinced that a new type of human is rising—*homo videns*—whose perception and knowledge are greatly modified by media images. In his idea, the turn from conceptual language of texts to media images also brings deprivation of abstract thinking, and, as Solík [19] adds, also emotional changes. We do not need to think; seeing a picture is enough. Sartori [13] explains: "Television brings metamorphosis that affects the very core of *Homo sapiens*. It is not a mere tool for communication, but also an anthropological instrument that constructs a new kind of human existence." *Homo sapiens* then changes to *homo videns*, which introduces decline in erudition and cultural decadence. It is similar in the case of the Internet that, unlike television, is interactive. If used by

immersed and become addicted or virtualize the real world.

define holocaust or think of two Slovak classical music composers."

*Cyberspace*

group, identify oneself with the group, or change identity. Our identity can then be

We can call the changes that we studied in this part of subchapter (changes in time, space, structures of thinking, and identification with technologies) formal, because they are results of using mental or physical connection to information technologies. Of course we could mention other formal influences, and we may, for example, study changes in the attention, memory, social contacts, and more. In the background of this approach is the idea of technological determinism, such as M. McLuhan, L. A. White, J. Lohisse, and other authors. The starting point for this approach is the idea that new communication technologies have a profound impact on human cognitive changes and consequently changes in culture and society. Along with formal influences, there are also changes based on content influence. We see content as particular communicated information that may take various forms—perhaps as symbols (images, sounds, and so on) or meanings (scientific, social, entertaining, and similar). Formal influence of cyberspace, though harder to be recognized as it is not a direct product of communication, has a stronger influence on shaping a man than communicated content, because it structurally changes his ideas and thinking. S. Gáliková Tolnaiová [15] calls the formal type of influence stronger version and the second, content type, weaker version of media influence. It is chiefly the first—formal type—that contributes to the new anthropogenesis, influencing man mentally, psychically, and also physically to certain degree.

constructed in accord with our participation in various groups.

**4. Positives and negatives of formal influence of cyberspace**

The usage of information technologies and especially communication in cyberspace has its positives but also negatives. Modern communication technologies, similarly to other tools, can act as a good servant but a bad master. It is very difficult today to find the borderline between these two polarities because the bound between us and them is so strong that we are more or less unable to reliably distinguish and realize how much they influence us. Middle-aged and older generation, having lived without the influence of modern media, is more likely to debate this than younger, or the so-called digital generation, as they were growing up surrounded by new technologies that became an inseparable part of their life. Therefore it is extremely important to learn to see the perspective, build up a mental a psychological protective barrier when approaching media, and distinguish positives from negatives in communication in cyberspace.

We can now speak more on positives and negatives of the four formal influenced areas (time, dimension, structure of thinking, and identification) in cyberspace:

1.Time. When we communicate in cyberspace, we experience enormous speeding up of information transfer, which nowadays reaches almost the speed of light. Then there is a huge increase of amount of information, which still grows exponentially. This means we can access almost any information quickly, but selecting and processing are more demanding and time-consuming, which lead to sketchiness. The lack of time further causes another effect—deprivation of time that should be dedicated to holiday, family, bringing up children, and so on. Paradoxically, one may be killing the time by surfing the Internet, chatting to friends, or sending emails simply to maintain the feeling of being engaged or belonging to a group. Besides this, information in cyberspace is not stored and communicated linearly, but hypertextually, in a fanlike pattern, which leads to favoritism of simultaneous time over linear time. With linear time being broken comes also lack of interest in the past, history, culture, and traditions but also indifference regarding the future. This is typical of the modern digital

**20**

youth. Bauerlein [16] carried out research at high schools and universities in the USA and found out that year after year students are less and less aware of history and civic education, and generally their knowledge in subjects that have something to do with history is less and less adequate. Volko [17] carried a knowledge research at one of the Slovak universities and acquired a similar result, which he commented: "Quality of general knowledge is, mildly speaking, inadequate. Students that will in the future work in media, struggle when asked to say for example when Slovak National Uprising started, they cannot define holocaust or think of two Slovak classical music composers."

2. Space. A positive aspect of communication in cyberspace is in its ability to defeat geographical locations. We can now communicate with someone who lives in Australia or the USA not only orally but also visually. We even can watch events happening in various places on the globe. This may bring its negative aspect we can lose the sense of value of the real surrounding, our homeland, traditions, and culture in a given place. With communication on the Internet, importance of such a place declines, and people lose their roots. The Internet and also globalization tear the bound between geographical location and social role. With no geographical and social roots, one can easily become homeless in cyberspace.

Cyberspace of electronic media does not only consist of online telecommunication or online tele-seeing of the world; it is a world of new opportunities in virtualization of reality. Virtualization of reality may take various modes of reality or creation of brand new, fantastic worlds. Communication, or contact with virtual worlds, brings some pros and some contrast. In playing games young people can learn manual and visual skills and learn about the world but also become completely immersed and become addicted or virtualize the real world.

3.Structure of thinking. In communication within cyberspace, some structural changes in thinking and consequently in learning occur. Each media has its own semiotics, and the most fundamental media, for example, spoken word, found their new cultural epochs. Therefore, media are tools for our thinking and learning. Bystřický [18], for instance, says that "we also use different ways of thinking with increased use of technologies, not in terms of changing the actual availability of such abilities; we rather fundamentally alter strategy of their use." Thinking in cyberspace is influenced by discontinuity of images, short texts, and similar, which does not help us to train concentration and continual refinement of ideas. On the contrary, a text in a newspaper or book requires us to concentrate and pursue the logical chain of ideas that are expressed. Book and newspaper thus develop abstract and logically continual thinking, while television and especially the Internet nourish visual and discontinuous thinking. According to G. Sartori, image-based media, such as television and the Internet, alter the way we think, imagine, and learn. He is convinced that a new type of human is rising—*homo videns*—whose perception and knowledge are greatly modified by media images. In his idea, the turn from conceptual language of texts to media images also brings deprivation of abstract thinking, and, as Solík [19] adds, also emotional changes. We do not need to think; seeing a picture is enough. Sartori [13] explains: "Television brings metamorphosis that affects the very core of *Homo sapiens*. It is not a mere tool for communication, but also an anthropological instrument that constructs a new kind of human existence." *Homo sapiens* then changes to *homo videns*, which introduces decline in erudition and cultural decadence. It is similar in the case of the Internet that, unlike television, is interactive. If used by

someone culturally illiterate, only what seems to be interesting will be picked, namely, entertainment. We could see this aspect of structuring in thinking as negative. Positive aspect could be seen in rapid access to information and, under certain condition, also access to information offered by "collective intelligence," collective source of information, for example Wikipedia.

Another structural change in thinking in communication in cyberspace occurs in net-based or hypertext-based source of information. We could describe this type of communication or information as rhizomorph. Eco [20] used this term to distinguish it from the previous, treelike (*arborescent*) thinking. A picture of tree, for example, in the Middle Ages thinking (*arbor porphyriana*), represented a neat structure of hierarchy-based and logical thinking, from the essence of being, all the way down to its peripheral symptoms. However, rhizomatic thinking is non-systematic, incomplete, and netlike and has no beginning and no end. Thus the Internet, based on its own technological and netlike (rhizomatic) structure, promotes "loop connections" and consequent disintegration of the so-called linear code. U. Eco explains that rhizome excuses and supports disharmony, because rhizome creates loop-like processes. Eco even says that "To think means, in rhizome, to advance blindly and rely only on assumptions." The Internet, characteristic for its hypertext, or perhaps rhizomatic connection of information, will not support abstract, linear, and logical thinking, which may constitute a threat for modern society. Spitzer [21] states that digital natives instead of thinking in hermeneutic circle (from fragments to the whole picture and the other way round) get only superficial information surfing on the Internet: "Digital natives do not go through this hermeneutic circle: they haphazardly click here and there and never return to a good source; they look only horizontally (do not dig deeper)." Višňovský [22] notices that there is a difference between printed information and online information. When we read online, we do not read horizontally, line by line, but slide vertically along the text.

4.Identification. In communication on the Internet, there are two sorts of identifications: mental and physical connection with media that helps us get inside cyberspace or mental identification with content in cyberspace. The first type of identification constitutes mental or mentally physical cyborgism. It is currently possible to connect technology (artificial arm) to the nervous system and control it by thought. We can expect similar applications also in the field of information technology—for example, Google's Google Glass and later possibly electronic contact lenses. Some technologies may, in the future, be implemented also in the human body. This could bring its positives for some people who suffer from injuries after accidents and also provide immediate access to information. On the other hand, it could bring a fundamental dependence on technology and potential danger of abusing this technology to spy on people or control them.

At the present time, self-identification with content in cyberspace through social groups, or avatars, is still more and more common. The effort to find one's place among a social group and be able to share one's knowledge and experiences may be taken as desirable. One can sometimes feel the need to live a better life in cyberspace, for example, in a videogame called Second life. This can induce therapeutic, liberating effects. People can feel a need to become somebody else in life and demonstrate this also in social life, as we can see, for example, in a videogame called cosplay (a portmanteau of the words costume play). In Japan, but now also in other counties in the Western world, cartoons and cartoon characters are idols for teenagers. Young people identify themselves with these characters, which manifest the most in their costumes. Sometimes this new identity is so strong that young people will not want

**23**

**Author details**

Trnava, Slovakia

Slavomír Gálik\* and Sabína Gáliková Tolnaiová

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: s\_galik@yahoo.com

Faculty of Mass Media Communication, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Cyberspace as a New Existential Dimension of Man DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88156*

**5. Conclusion**

to abandon the idea [9]. Everything depends on the extent and manifestation of such identification. If it causes alienation or addiction, it becomes a negative situation. Analysis of positive and negative changes in communication in cyberspace reveals that we need media education. D. Petranová [23] explains it is critical thinking that is the most important objective, and this can help us treat media with reserve, analyze information correctly, think independently, free ourselves from

We have known communication in cyberspace, especially in the cyberspace Internet, for slightly over a generation span, and we can already say that it has significantly influenced our cultural and social life; it even initiated a new existential dimension. The Internet cyberspace is a medium through which we create our ideas, communicate, and learn. Basing on analysis of older types of media, for example, written word and printed word, we know that these managed to restructure human thinking and acting completely. This leads us to believe that something similar is happening, and will be happening, also in connection with the Internet cyberspace. Media, including the Internet, influence us simply because we use them. The mere fact that we are connected to the Internet and use it in our communication in cyberspace is all what it takes; how we use it is not so important. We call the first type of influence, which is the result of being connected to technology, formal influence. The second kind of influence, triggered by communicating certain content, is defined as content influence. In this article we tried to point out that formal type changes are more crucial and paradigmatical and even constitute a new anthropogenesis. We specifically studied changes in our ideas of time and space, structure of thinking, and identity in cyberspace. These changes do not manifest merely in communication in cyberspace but affect also our everyday life. This is the reason why it is necessary to know their scope, positives, and negatives. New communication technologies influence our mentality but also our physical body. The question is how much is just enough to refine our personality, knowledge, and freedom and how much is simply too much, so they will start dictating and conducting us. We therefore need to learn to trust media with reserve, be critical, and spend at least part of the time we have without the influence of media, especially away from the Internet cyberspace.

stereotypes, and so on. This all should improve our personal freedom.

#### *Cyberspace as a New Existential Dimension of Man DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88156*

to abandon the idea [9]. Everything depends on the extent and manifestation of such identification. If it causes alienation or addiction, it becomes a negative situation.

Analysis of positive and negative changes in communication in cyberspace reveals that we need media education. D. Petranová [23] explains it is critical thinking that is the most important objective, and this can help us treat media with reserve, analyze information correctly, think independently, free ourselves from stereotypes, and so on. This all should improve our personal freedom.
