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DISEMBODIMENT AND CHANGES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL BORDERS AS THE EFFECTS OF NORMATIVE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES. MESSAGE 1 // Pedagogical Review. 2021. Issue 4 (38). P. 221-228

While we live in times of anthropological crisis caused by spread of technologies which do not match to people’s body experience (V. A. Podoroga), only the insufficient number of psychological studies acknowledge the phenomenon of disembodiment. Some researchers refer to it as the bodiless state, dematerialization or anonymity of a user in cyberspace. In this study we suggest a theoretical construct of disembodiment on the Internet as the effect of normative use of information technologies. It is based on the conception by the British existential psychologist R. Laing. His formula of the self: self ↔ (body-other), self ↔ (body-world), which describes a clinical way of unembodied being, broadly corresponds to both the fact of technological disembodiment and a technological way of disembodied being in Internet addiction with its inherent structuring and a non-normative border in the core of the self. We compare the disembodiment on the Internet, which leads to confusion on the boundary between the self and nonself, to the framework consequence of the normative use of information technologies in a model by E. I. Rasskazova, V. A. Emelin and A. Sh. Tkhostov – changes of psychological borders. We come to a conclusion that In the digital age the borders are set in the experience of two selves. The real self is genuinely based on the body and the virtual self isn’t, to the extent when the very expression «boundaries of a body» becomes meaningless. Indefinitely expanded blurry borders correspond to the virtualization of a user’s self. The user’s beliefs that other people and information objects are available and controllable are symptoms of changes of borders and can also describe the disembodiment. The disembodiment is also characterized by feeling of disengagement from the body, sense of security on account of anonymity, deficit of reality of the self and incompleteness and illusiveness of the online existence.

Keywords: effects of normative use of information technologies, disembodiment on the Internet, changes of psychological boundaries

THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISEMBODIMENT AND CHANGES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL BORDERS AS THE NORMATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES // Pedagogical Review. 2021. Issue 5 (39). P. 186-194

In the present study we compare the construct of disembodiment on the Internet (N. V. Kopteva, A.Ju. Kalugin, L.Ya. Dorfman) based on the clinical conception by the British existential psychologist R. Laing and measured by the same-name technique to the framework consequence of the normative use of the Internet - changes of the psychological borders (E. I. Rasskazova, V. A. Emelin and A. Sh. Tkhostov) assessed by MIG-TS-2 technique. We identified the relationship between measurements of disembodiment and parameters of changes of psychological borders which may indicate that artificial technological split between the mental self and the physical body of a user creates conditions for confusion on the boundary between self and non-self. Expansion and blurring of the borders of an Internet user reinforces virtualizationinduced experiences of depersonalization and loss of reality regardless of whether the technology meets their expectations of availability and controllability of other people, objects and information or doesn’t. Motivation of Internet preference due to the opportunities that independence of the physical body and changes of boundaries present mostly follows the same pattern. Simplicity and easiness of the disembodied technological way of being within the expanded blurry borders makes the Web attractive and explains the relationship between the disembodiment and Internet addiction which can be viewed as distortion of normative technological disembodiment in cases of problematic user’s activity.

Keywords: Disembodiment on the Internet technique, Changes of Psychological Borders when using Technical Devices assessment procedure (MIG-TS-2)