International Journal of Internet Science

A peer reviewed open access journal for empirical findings, methodology, and theory of social and behavioral science concerning the Internet and its implications for individuals, social groups, organizations, and society.

Internet Psychology, a Very Personal Reflection: Review of The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology, Edited by A. N. Joinson, K. Y. A. McKenna, T. Postmes and U.-D. Reips (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Mark D. Griffiths
International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom

When I began my PhD in 1987, I would never have predicted that something could come along that would revolutionise the way we work, interact, socialise and occupy our leisure time. However, the Internet has come to play such a massive part in the day-to-day lives of so many people worldwide that we sometimes forget what life was like in those pre-Internet times. My own introduction to the Internet came about comparatively late in 1995 when I sent my first e-mail. I don't think I surfed the net until 1996. The strangest thing about all this was that I was writing articles and papers about the Internet before ever experiencing it myself!
In writing this essay review I have found it very hard not to put myself - or rather my own Internet-based research - at the centre of it. I read this book (Joinson, McKenna, Postmes, & Reips, 2007) with a very particular set of biases and as someone who has spent twelve years of writing and researching about the psychology of the Internet in my own particular areas of interest (more of which later at the end of this essay). I make no apologies for my first-person narrative or (what some may describe as) the somewhat ego-centred nature of my review in the latter half.
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