PSY 4930: Psychology and the Internet
Spring 2006
15298 M.W.F 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM PS227 Boca Raton
Professor
Larry S. Liebovitch
Office: Behavioral Science Building BS-12, Room 323
561.297.2239
liebovitch@clifford.ccs.fau.edu
http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~liebovitch/larry.html
DESCRIPTION:
The INTERNET has become an important mode of how people acquire
information, interact with each other, and conduct business.
Thorough
knowledge of the INTERNET is becoming of pivotal importance in academic
Psychology and in the Business environment.
This course will:
Tell
you what the INTERNET is, how it works, and how it came to be.
Describe
the social space and processes that happen over the INTERNET.
Describe how the INTERNET is changing social
interactions, businesses, politics, and the military.
TEXTBOOKS:
required
- Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. Linked.Perseus
Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-7382-0667-9 (or paperback published by Plume - Penguine
Group, 2003, ISBN 0-452-28439-2).
- Manuel Castells. The Internet
Galaxy.Oxford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-19-924153-8.
additional non-required materials
- Robert Cringely. Accidental
Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign
Competition, and Still Can't Get A Date. Harper Business, 1993,
0-88730-855-4.
- Robert Cringely. The Triumph of the Nerds.
Amrbose Video Publishing. (in DVD and videotape).
- Robert Cringely. Nerds
2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet. PBS Home Video (in videotape).
-
Manuel Castells, Editor. Network Society: A Cross Cultural Perspective.
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-84542-435-2.
- Tom Forester and
Perry Morrison.
Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Dilemmas in Computing.
MIT Press, 1993, ISBN 0262560739 (or paperback 2nd Edition, MIT Press, 1994,
ISBN 0-262-56073-9).
- David Porter, Editor: Internet Culture.
Routledge Press, 1996, ISBN 0-415-91684-4.
- Sara Kiesler, Editor. Culture
of the Internet. Lawrence Erlbaum Associated Publishers, 1997, ISBN
0-8058-1636-4.
- Geert Lovink. Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet
Culture. MIT Press, 2002, ISBN 0-262-12249-9.
- Kimberly S. Young.
Caught in the Net: How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction - and a
Winning Strategy for Recovery. John Wiley & Sons, 1998, ISBN
0-471-19159-0.
TOPICS
- A BRIEF (BUT INTERESTING) HISTORY OF COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET
- Mathematicians, aiming guns, tubes, transistors, and integrated circuits.
- Nerds, Altair, Apple, IBM, and Microsoft.
- APRA, DARPA, BBN, circuit switching (bellheads), and packet switching
(netheads).
- E-mail, Mosaic, WWW.
- How the Internet is run: IANA and ICANN
- PARADOX: is innovation best served by hippies having fun or capitalists
making money?
- HOW ARE THINGS CONNECTED?
- Graphs, random graphs, and Paul Erdos.
- Small worlds, six degrees of separation, and Stanley Milgram.
- Fractal networks: scale free, the distribution of incomes, words, and
almost everything else.
- Applications: Internet, social networks, biology.
- How networks fail: hubs, vulnerability, cascading failures, and why the
lights all go out together.
- LESSONS: common themes run from molecules to people.
- THE WAY THE WEB IS CONNECTED
- Search engines: Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves.
- Social groups.
- PARADOX: the Internet connects you to people like you but not around you.
Is this socially stabilizing or destabilizing?
- LAYERS OF CULTURE
- Techno-elite: academics, scientists, hackers, crackers, and open sourcers.
- Virtual communities: MUDS, MOOS, and Match.com.
- Entrepreneurs: VCs, Bill, and Steve.
- Those left out: the poor and third world.
- PRIVACY
- Viruses, worms, trojan horses, cookies, and firewalls.
- Spam.
- Encryption, https, public keys, and RSA.
- Databases, opt-in and opt-out, Double Click, and spyware.
- "You already have zero privacy - get over it" - Scott McNeally
CEO Sun Micorsystems
- Your rights and how to protect them.
- PARADOX: the government wants less encryption to read your mail to keep the
nation safe, but this makes the economy vulnerable to hackers and the nation
less safe.
- BUSINESS
- Normal business vs. networked business.
- Cooperate and compete at the same time.
- Examples of networked business: Cisco, Dell, Nokia, Red Hat.
- Rapid response: Benetton 6 months, The Gap 2 months, Zara 2 weeks.
- Portals.
- Financial markets: does speed kill?
- Carlo (Charles) Ponzi and the stamps he sold.
- LESSONS: knowledge, communications, and speed wins.
- PARADOX: it is best to compete and cooperate at the same time.
- MILITARY
- How battles are fought: Saratoga, Yorktown, and Normandy.
- Transformation, flexibility, swarming, top-view.
- LESSONS: knowledge, communications, and mobility wins.
- POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
- NGOs.
- Utopian communities.
- Blogs versus media conglomerates.
- Cyber-terrorism.
- PARADOX: who will run the world: nation states or international
corporations?
- PARADOX: does the Internet open up more citizen participation or government
control?
COURSE POLICIES:
Attendance:
- Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes. If you miss a class
you are responsible for ALL the material covered during that class, including
lecture material and rules and regulations about the course (such as penalties
for late assignments, etc.).
- Some of the material covered in the lectures (and included on the exams) is
NOT in the required texts.
- It is the responsibility of the student to withdraw from this class, should
that status be desired - the instructor cannot withdraw students from the
course. The instructor will not give the grade of "I" in lieu of a
grade of "D" or "F". The grade of "I" will be
considered only in exceptional cases (such as serious illness) for students who
are presently performing at a "C" or higher level in the course.
Grading:
- Midterm Exam and Final Exam. (The material covered will include the
material covered in class and the assigned readings. All students are expected
to take the exams on the days they are scheduled. Makeup exams will be given
only in exceptional circumstances and only if the student contacts the
instructor BEFORE the exam.)
- Required paper.
- Required oral presentation of the paper in class.
- Homework assignments.
- The papers and homework are due on the dates assigned. These will be
accepted up to 1 week late, but they will be penalized. None will be accepted
over 1 week late.)
| Midterm Exam |
15% |
| Final Exam |
25% |
| Written Paper |
20% |
| Oral Presentation |
20% |
| Homework |
20% |