A Professional Meeting at
Behavior Online (http://www.behavior.net)
Healthy and Pathological Internet Use
Sunday, October 24, 4:00-5:00 pm Eastern US time (Universal/Greenwich Time: 21)
chat login: http://www.behavior.net/chat
Moderator: John Suler, Ph.D.
- Recognizing healthy versus pathological internet use
- The controversy over the topic of internet addiction
- Pathological behavior in cyberspace
- Techniques for alleviating pathological internet use
- Cultivating a healthy use of the internet
We strongly recommend that you visit Behavior Online ahead of time and test out the chat software (http://www.behavior.net/chat). For this meeting, we will be using the chat software "FreeChat." Read the help page. It's easy to understand. There are some disadvantages to FreeChat as compared to other chat programs, but it requires no downloads, is easy to use, and is stable across many platforms. During the meeting, if you wish to see new messages as quickly as possible, set refresh to 5 and click on the refresh button often. If this frequent refresh is hard on your eyes, set refresh to a longer period (20, 40) and use the refresh button sparingly. Note that new messages since the last refresh appear in a different color at the top of the screen.
THE PANELISTS:
MICHAEL FENICHEL, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a decade of experience and practice with psychotherapy and the study of "person-therapy fit". An adjunct professor at 3 New York City universities, Dr. Fenichel has a private clinical practice, works with adolescents in a variety of school settings, and supervises clinical and school psychology students. Currently the President of the NY State Psychological Association's School Psychology Division, "Dr. Mike" works closely in developing and presenting materials for adolescents, and for mental health professionals studying violence and its prevention. In recent years he has turned to the Internet for presenting and researching such phenomenon as "online addictions", the study of psychology, and the treatment of learning and emotional disorders. He is one of the founding members of ISMHO, and is on its executive board. Dr. Fenichel's award-winning website, "Current Topics in Psychology" is at http://www.fenichel.com/Current.shtml .
DR. DAVID GREENFIELD is a practicing psychologist and business consultant, with specialties in family psychology, corporate and business consulting, Employee Assistance and addiction treatment. He is founding partner of Psychological Health Associates, LLC, and director of Virtual-Addiction.com. Dr. Greenfieldās research and clinical work on Internet addiction has appeared on CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News Channel, Good Morning America, NBC National News, and the Maury Povitch show. He has also appeared in U.S. News and World Report, the LA Times, Redbook, Womanās World, USA Today, The Associated Press, The Boston Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Working Woman, PC Computing, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Kiplingers as well as numerous other publications, TV, and Radio stations, including Internationally. He is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on Internet use and abuse, and is author of "Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyberfreaks, and those who Love Them", to be published in October of 1999. Dr. Greenfield currently serves as president of the Connecticut Psychological Association, and maintains his home and his treatment and consulting practice Connecticut. Dr. Greenfield has recently founded The Center for Internet Studies which will conduct research, training, consultation, and treatment services about the Internet as well as Internet abuse and Addiction.
STORM A. KING, M.S. is a doctoral candidate in a clinical psychology program. He has been researching the value of online self help groups for several years His dissertation in progress is "The therapeutic value of virtual self-help groups," a corralational study investigating the therapeutic value perceived by members of email groups that function as self-help groups. He has been quoted as an expert on Internet addiction or on the value of online self-help groups in the following major media publications; Newsweek, The Chicago Sun Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Home PC, Fox News Online and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He created and maintain a web site that lists resources for researchers interested in researching the psychology of virtual communities at http://www.concentric.net/~Astorm. He is the current president of The International Society for Mental Health Online. His CV may be viewed at http://www.concentric.net/~Astorm/cv. His articles about internet addiction include Is the Internet Addictive, or Are Addicts Using the Internet?, Internet gambling and pornography: illustrative examples of the psychological consequences of communication anarchy, and Compulsive Internet Gambling: A New Form of an Old Clinical Pathology.
STEVEN E. STERN, Ph.D. in Social/ Organizational Psychology Temple University, 1995, M.A. 1992, Temple University, B.A. 1988 (Psychology and History) Clark University. A student of the late David Kipnis, Steven Stern has spent much of his career studying various ways in which technology shapes social interaction. He has examined how the use of automated technology influences self-perception and the perceptions of others. He is presently researching how computer synthesized speech is perceived in both disabled and non-disabled users. His interest in computer-mediated communication dates back to his development of the Lost Email Method, an adaptation of Milgram's Lost Letter Technique. He teaches at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and is a consulting editor of Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers.
DR. KIMBERLY YOUNG, a former systems analyst and clinical psychologist, is Executive Director of the Center for On-Line Addiction and serves as the webmaster for www.Netaddiction.com, the first educational resource center and online clinic to specialize in Internet-related conditions such as compulsive day trading, online infidelity, and cybersexual addiction. Dr. Young travels both domestically and abroad to conduct CE workshops on the treatment of cyber-related disorders and the development of comprehensive web-based treatment programs for healthcare organizations. She also works as a business consultant to CEOs, HRMs, and EAPs on how to effectively implement the Internet and e-commerce in the workplace. Dr. Young has served as an expert witness for both civil and criminal cases regarding her research on online behavior and she recently authored "Caught in the Net," the first recovery book for Internet Addiction, already translated in four languages. Her work has been featured in hundreds of newsprint publications including major articles in The Wall Street Journal, USAToday, The New York Times, Newsweek, and Time and she has appeared on numerous national and international radio and television programs including NPR, the BBC, CNBC, Good Morning America, and ABCs World News Tonight. Dr. Young currently serves on the editorial board of CyberPsychology and Behavior, is the editor of the CyberHealth E-Newsletter, a columnist for Commitment Magazine, an e-zine for women, and recently served as the National Spokesperson for Reuters International, Inc., regarding their study on information addiction among corporations. Dr. Young is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, and a member of the American Psychological Association, the National Council for Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, and the International Society of Mental Health On-line."
JOHN SULER, Ph.D., (moderator for the panel) is Professor of Psychology at Rider University and a practicing clinical psychologist. His online hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace describes the results of his ongoing research on how individuals and groups behave in cyberspace. His work has been reported by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, the Chicago Sun Times, CNN, MSNBC, and US News and World Report, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He is consulting editor for Behavior Online, a member of the editorial board of CyberPsychology and Behavior, an executive member of the International Society of Mental Health Online, editor of The Contemporary Media Forum for The Journal of Applied Psychoanalysis, and staff writer for Cybertowers Self-Help and Psychology Magazine. He also created and maintains several other large web sites, including Teaching Clinical Psychology and the award winning Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors.
Transcripts of previous Behavior Online chat meetings are available at
http://www.behavior.net/chatevents/index.html