Studying the Internet : a challenge for modern psychology

In the past 25 years, the Internet has developed from a modest military data network into a communication space frequented by more than 10 percent of the world's population, a majority of which are from industrialized countries such as the EU, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the US (http://www.nua.ie). The psychological study of Internet usage has, over the same time span, evolved from being a study of fringe phenomena to being the study of an important and pervasive aspect of everyday life. There are several forms in which the Internet is relevant to psychology. The aim of the current special issue of the Swiss Journal of Psychology is to provide a forum for these new developments in psychological research. Indeed the research in this issue focuses on each of these three dimensions: a) studying the Internet as an object in itself, focusing in particular on its social-psychological implications, b) introducing new research methods and tools that enable us to do research in this environment, and c) using the Internet as a laboratory for gathering data about a wide range of topics which are usually studied only in the traditional psychology labs