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  Comparing online vs face-to-face psychology, what do you think online psychology would be like?

  I believe that the mode and pattern of interaction will be determined primarily by the particular market.  I believe there are two key market that could benefit from this service: i) people living in under-serviced, isolated rural communities; ii) time-poor urban professionals who find it difficult to make regular face-to-face meetings.

  An interesting parallel for me is my relationship with my PhD supervisor.   We started with fortnightly face-to-face meetings- however, after about three months we started to use Skype video.  This works well, but I believe it is because we established a good face-to-face relationship before we went online.  Nardi (1998) talks about this as 'social scaffolding' whereby online interactions occur within the context of subtle and complex understandings of another person, acquired by being in the same physical location- such as touch, physical posture, manner, sharing physical objects, sharing food or drink etc.  When I meet my supervisor we have tradition of taking it in turns buying coffee- it is a small but important activity in maintaining a good relationship.

  Meeting by Skype video with my supervisor provides greater flexibility when I travel, when my supervisor has other commitments, when we only need to have a short meeting or when either of us are just to busy to meet face-to-face. Even living in North Sydney there is a transaction cost of about an hour's travel time for a meeting that might be anywhere between 45mins and 2 hours. On the face of it that's not particularly efficient,but it's a matter of evaluating each time we meet how important the different aspects of the relationship are- how important is it to buy coffee and chew the fat, as opposed to just focusing of basic efficiency.

  Posted 24 May 08 in What do you think about online counseling?