Application of Internet Methods in Psychology

Abstract

Web technology evolves quickly from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 since its birth in 1990s. Now it is not only a broadcasting channel (e.g., Wikipedia) but also a platform where people share their opinions, ideas, and sentiments with friends (e.g., social network sites). Therefore, more and more psychologists are interested in how the Web can help us investigate human mind and behaviors. In this chapter, I review different approaches of psychological studies on the Internet as a summary for the current applications of the Internet technology in psychology. The first approach is simply conducting surveys and experiments online, although caution is needed for some types of online experiment. The second approach is using the Internet search engine (e.g., Google or Wikipedia) to search for behavior criteria on Web pages. The last one is directly using social network sites (e.g., Facebook) to investigate people’s behaviors under online social contexts.