=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3090/paper37
|storemode=property
|title=Cyberreality as an Interdeterminant of Psychological Phenomenology
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3090/paper37.pdf
|volume=Vol-3090
|authors=Vladimir Yanchuk
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ims2/Yanchuk21
}}
==Cyberreality as an Interdeterminant of Psychological Phenomenology==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3090/paper37.pdf
Cyberreality as an Interdeterminant of Psychological
Phenomenology
Vladimir Yanchuka
a
Academy of Postgraduate Education, Belarus State University, Nekrasova 20, Minsk, 220040, Belarus
Abstract
The cyberpsychology transformation in extreme environmental change conditions (ecological,
cyber, technical, technological, social), which has acquired special significance today, has not
been practically investigated. The authors attempt to extend this problem viewing horizon
provides sociocultural-dialogic interdeterminist metatheory. It is theoretically substantiated
and demonstrated that changes in the natural, cyber, techno-technological, and social
environment inevitably lead to substantive behavior changes. Furthermore, this impact cannot
be reduced to a simple sum of its constituent parts. The result of interaction is the acquisition
of a new quality, features, mechanisms, prerequisites, and consequences of the formation of
which should become the object of psychological research. Theoretical explanations and
evidence of innovativeness of the approach for the cyberpsychology phenomena's rethinking
are presented. In general, we discuss the search for theoretical grounds for achieving qualitative
changes in human functioning in current heterogeneous and heteroqualitative conditions.
Keywords1
cyberpsychology, cyberreality, digitalization, Homo Cyberis, interdetermination,
sociocultural-dialogic interdeterminist approach
1. Introduction
Uncertainty is one of the most common characteristics of current being-in-the-world. Accelerating
technical and technological progress, the digitalization of almost all spheres of life, the cyber expansion
of the world wide web, periodically flaring pandemics are increasingly undermining certainty in the
worldview and engendering a frightening sense of uncertainty. The certainty has been replaced by the
absolute uncertainty of an interdisciplinary nature. The recently discovered coronavirus is a new
pathogen of a biological nature. However, it relates to ancient, more intractable, and more contagious
danger: the human fear. Fear changes human behavior, for better or worse. Fear is generated by high
uncertainty and unpredictability that cause the need to rethink all previous knowledge. Many seemingly
unshakable ideas concerning the advantages or disadvantages of various types of behavior were
destroyed.
Industry 4.0, commonly referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is "an emblematic title for
the current trend of automation, scaling and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, including
artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cloud computing, cognitive computing, the Internet of Things and
the Internet of Nano Things, or the Internet of Everything, and big data analytics. Besides, the
interactive networking of human agents through social media platforms and the generation of big data
is extended to machines so that networks of communicating machines are created" [22].
COVID-19 extreme pandemic context today focuses on the attention of the world's interdisciplinary
scientific community. A vast number of pseudo-experts appeared promptly, providing peremptory
explanations and recommendations on both the nature of the COVID-19 and ways of overcoming it.
The vociferousness of this kind of pseudo-expert conclusion and the media flow of messages about the
coronavirus's negative dynamics emotionally strain the audience with an increase in the number of
IMS 2021 - International Conference "Internet and Modern Society", June 24-26, 2021, St. Petersburg, Russia
EMAIL: yanchuk1954@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0002-4524-8371
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
372 PART 2: Internet Psychology
deaths. Moreover, it leads to disorientation and frightening uncertainty in the audience, which, in turn,
generates an epidemic of fear with even more significant negative consequences. Besides, although
writing this article, it was possible to discuss only increasing fears in society [5, 25], it seems much
more critical to determine socio-psychological consequences provoked by the current extreme situation
that has become international. Due to the uncertainty as to what is happening and its prospects, fear and
panic grow. This uncertainty is augmented with the lack of analogies, the psychosis injected by mass
media, the search for quick and not always justified solutions, and the awareness that previous
knowledge and experience do not allow any quick and effective solutions in the nearest future. This
also led to a sharp increase in the influence of cyberreality as a popular means of uncertainty
overcoming through Internet resources. A prolonged stay in conditions of self-isolation and uncertainty
has led to an imbalance in the interaction of real and virtual reality.
Furthermore, these consequences for global mental health will be significant and, in many ways,
destructive. It is evident today that overcoming them requires new insights and solutions [21]. The
accelerating stream of great occasions and changes in the eventful world, uncontrollable technical and
technological progress (with unknown consequences for humans), the growth of ecological problems,
and others increase interest in finding certainty in this dynamic uncertainty. Hence, the interest in
futurologists' work suggests even darker perspectives [6, 9, 13].
The above-described uncertainty context caused by the pandemic could not but affect
cyberpsychology, which is faced with the need to rethink many of the previously obvious ideas. Just
like the awareness of the need to find fundamentally new approaches and solutions. One of the possible
innovative approaches that propose problem area analysis horizons expanding presents the author's
sociocultural-dialogical interdeterminist metatheory. A general description of the approach and its
capabilities concerning cyberpsychology is presented in the proposed article [27-29].
The initial premise lies in the thesis that psychological phenomenology is not homogeneous and
static but heterogeneous and dynamic. Nevertheless, it lacks critical comparison, integration, and
synthesis in this theory body, resulting in conceptual clouding and ambiguity. When we reflect on the
current state of existing knowledge, we can state the presence of an infinite number of local theories
and empirical findings in it, leading to the drowning in the unlimited of disparate fragments, not
accompanied by a holistic understanding of the researched phenomenology particularity as the integral
reality of human existence that determines its functioning. In the proposed metatheoretical approach,
an author's attempt to solve this fundamental problem is relevant for developing psychological
knowledge.
The metatheory starts from the pluralistic character of modern knowledge and its philosophical and
epistemological grounds. Existing crisis debates in social science in general and psychological science
(towards replicability, disintegration, empiricism) are considered in the context of deterministic and
indeterministic development directions. Is proposed an interdeterministic alternative in social science
development and its innovative potential and attempt to integrate the variety of existing psychological
knowledge in the form of positioning in the psychological knowledge heterogeneous-multidimensional-
multiparadigm spaces in the form of three interconnected four-dimensional continua, allows integrating
all the existing traditions and diversity of approaches. The metatheory proposes the mechanism of
heteroqualitative natures, psychic spheres, and behavior determinants interaction – sociocultural-
dialogic interdetermination. At the same time, interdetermination is understood as a process and result
of interaction, which manifests itself in the acquisition of a new qualitative state by the whole. It focuses
the audience's attention on acquiring a whole new quality, not reducible to its constituent parts' simple
sum. A sociocultural-dialogical interdeterminist solution of the psychological knowledge integration is
unfolding, and it demonstrates applied possibilities of metatheory and prospects of its development.
2. Theoretical Background
The current state of the discussed problem and cyberpsychology knowledge area is characterized as
a state of self-determination in absolute uncertainty conditions. Assessing the current state of
psychological science, Robert Sternberg uses the metaphor of a climber climbing a mountain peak in
complete darkness: "The climb up the mountain, I believe, is a metaphor for scientific progress. We try
in small steps to climb the top, aiming to learn "the truth" about a scientific phenomenon. However, we
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 373
are climbing in the dark because we really cannot see the entire terrain. Moreover, after small steps, we
reach what seems to be the top—understanding of a scientific phenomenon—we should know that,
most likely, our feeling of being there is not really the same as our being there. We may have settled
upon a local maximum." [20, P. 650]. Furthermore, this movement in absolute darkness is carried out
with increasing speed in the conditions of a catastrophic lack of time for making verified and
scientifically reasoned decisions. Considering the explanatory and prognostic functions of scientific
knowledge, the proposed research's primary goal is to search for metatheoretical foundations to define
uncertainty and instability conditions.
It is helpful to turn back to history at such critical moments and consider changes in worldview over
its extension. The analysis of this evolutionary singularity was done using the previously introduced
theoretical construct of "cultural-scientific tradition," which allows tracing the changes in society's ideas
about the world order. Cultural-scientific tradition is defined as a multivocal and dynamically mobile
complex of philosophical, epistemological, scientific-theoretical, and emotional-aesthetic
representations depending on the historical, social, and national context … characteristic of a certain
mentality, particular way of world perception, attitude, and evaluation of both the cognitive capabilities
of the person and his place and role in the world around him. The application of this construct allowed
tracing the dynamics of the worldview in various traditions' (cultural syncretism, theocentrism,
anthropocentrism, modernism, postmodernism) foundations, supplementing them with the tradition of
dialogism, which found its supreme embodiment in dialogue as a prerequisite, mechanism and
propulsion of culture and science in conditions of diversity. Figure 1 provides a general characteristic
of the main sociocultural-scientific traditions. Unlike previous versions of the scheme, this modification
adds the cultural-scientific tradition of digimodernism
Figure 1: The evolution of the cultural-scientific traditions
The process of social development is represented in the form of evolution of worldview over
historical eras, occurring in various forms of human thought, including philosophy, literature,
architecture, the arts, and several other disciplines and human activities [30, P. 33]. Today we can talk
about a kind of competition between the two lines of development – post-postmodern (metamodernism,
digimodernism), which represents the modern development of modernism and postmodernism ideas.
The fundamental difference between them lies in the search for universal foundations of the universe
(original primordial atoms) in the first case and the negation of those in the second, by stating the
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holistic nature of the universe and its infinity, which cannot be covered in thinking because of its infinity
and, accordingly, the absolutization of multivoicesness in the world description. In social reality, this
competition is offered in the form of opposition conservatism – liberalism, globalism – antiglobalism,
and others.
From Fig. 1, it is evident that the primary debate regarding the direction of humanitarian knowledge
development is of an epistemological nature and reduced to the two directions competition: Aristotle's
atomism, oriented to the existing reality construction primary atoms discovery (in the context of
psychology in the form of behavior or psyche functioning universal laws) and Galilean holism,
recognizing the infinity of interrelated and interdependent psychic functioning elements. Aristotle's
atomism was unsuccessful in finding the first atoms to build an integral building of the psychic
understanding, Galilean holism – in the impossibility of the immense infinity of psychological
phenomenology embracing.
At the epistemological level, the dichotomy of atomism-holism reduces to the determinism-
indeterminism dichotomy. Today, it is entirely justified to speak about the apparent opposition of
determinism and indeterminism as its antithesis in the deep philosophical sense. It should be
emphasized that the apparent advantage of the former over the second in positivistically oriented
empirical studies. Nevertheless, if the virus's qualitative specificity and its nature are not understood,
its treatment becomes unclear. An indicator of this is the application of the methods of treatment used
to its known predecessors. Mainly, we see the use of the trial-and-error method, but not a conscious
movement towards understanding its nature. All this clearly shows the need for a systemic
understanding of the phenomenon, and not the endless finding of more and more new elements that do
not lead to the comprehension of its quality, which cannot be reduced to their simple sum.
Indeterminism is an alternative to determinism. It emphasizes free will and freedom of choice as not
determined by antecedent causes that not all events have causal reasons. Fundamental analysis of the
role of indeterminism in psychological and behavioral development presents the manuscript "Dynamics
and Indeterminism in Developmental and Social Processes" [8]. The indeterminist approach appears in
the historical, philosophical, and theoretical aspects of the dynamic systems approach, which later
became the subject of the same fundamental analysis in the methodology of dynamic processes in the
social and developmental sciences [23]. However, the indeterministic line of thought has a significant
drawback – it contributes to drowning in infinity and promoting non-stop movement in diversity,
leading to a loss of certainty and uncertainty prevalence. The latter is just the basis for increasing anxiety
about a promising future or loss of temporality.
Epistemologically, it is possible to speak about the apparent competition between determinism and
indeterminism as its antitheses. It should be emphasized that an advantage of the former in
positivistically oriented empirical studies is apparent. However, recognizing the minimal heuristic
possibilities of empiricism and its inability to act as a basis for sophisticated psychological phenomena
understanding led to a trend towards the growing popularity of the indeterministic direction in
psychological cognition supporters. Indeterminism is associated with the postmodern psychological
tradition, standing on anti-universalism positions and proclaiming multivoicesness as the mechanism
and resource for overcoming the limitation of universalism in psychological knowledge. However,
multivoicesness has an essential weakness – it leads to discordance and loss of definiteness in studied
phenomena interpretation owing to lack of the agreed and conventional meanings and accepted
mechanism of their negotiation. In the deterministic approach, such a mechanism is evident and
unchanged throughout the history of its existence – operationalization and verification. Thus, strengths
and weaknesses are present in both directions. The solution is traditionally in the middle. In the
discussed context, P. van Geert is very suggestive. Van Geert is one of the leading specialists in the
problem field, and he inferences: "A deterministic universe is dead because it has no degrees of
freedom: Everything is predestined, and no information is created because all information is contained
in the initial state (whatever that may be). An indeterministic universe is lifeless because it contains an
infinite number of degrees of freedom. No information is created because every event has a similar
probability. However, where the two principles meet, information and order are created in the form of
highly reduced degrees of freedom, in which differences between events become meaningful and
informative. The new concept of complex order emerging out of self-organization. For a complex order
to emerge, both determinism and indeterminism are needed" [24, P. 21).
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 375
A particular case presents a cultural-scientific tradition of digimodernism or informational autism,
a reality digitalization product that permeates today literally all spheres of human life [11]. Since its
first appearance in the second half of the 1990s under the impetus of new technologies, digimodernism
has decisively displaced postmodernism to establish itself as the twenty-first century's new cultural
paradigm. "It owes its emergence and preeminence to the computerization of text, which yields a new
form of textuality characterized in its purest instances by onwardness, haphazardness, evanescence, and
anonymous, social, and multiple authorship. These, in turn, become the hallmarks of a group of texts in
new and established modes that also manifest the digimodernist traits of infantilism, earnestness,
endlessness, and apparent reality" [11, P. 1). In the most general sense, according to A. Kirby,
"digimodernism," properly understood as a contraction of "digital modernism," is a pun: it is where
digital technology meets textuality and text is (re)formulated by the fingers and thumbs (the digits)
clicking and keying and pressing in the positive act of partial or obscurely collective textual elaboration
(Ibid). It is this cultural-scientific tradition that resonates most closely with the discussed problems of
the cyberpsychology phenomenology.
Immersion in the digital world coexists with qualitative changes in a cyber-technological
environment. We have seen a convergence of three principal technologies (computers, the internet, and
mobile telephony) and a move from the limited desk and text-based interactions to more sophisticated
and mobile forms of perpetual contact, which allow us to exchange all kinds of media from synchronous
text to photographs, synchronous video, and audio clips. Internet use has become a ubiquitous,
pervasive, and sometimes invisible part of our everyday lives, being accessed through all kinds of digital
devices from satnavs1 and games consoles to tablet computers, mobile phones, and smartwatches.
Therefore, the awareness of the "need for shift the focus of Cyberpsychology away from quantitative,
experimental approaches exploring the 'effects' of human-computer interaction and towards a focus on
the subjective experiences and sense-making of users in everyday contexts" [10, P. VIII].
The presented three scientific knowledge development lines raise the need to find integrative
solutions, requiring definition in epistemological and methodological grounds. Within the framework
of the cultural-dialogical interdeterminist approach, a new type of integration is proposed – dialogical,
in essence, involving the joint development of mutually acceptable and sheared decisions having an
inertial effect for a relatively definite period until the resource is exhausted for their productivity.
Humans must be able to negotiate and adhere to the agreements reached, just as scientists and politicians
should do this.
3. Method
The primary research method is the theoretical analysis of an existing psychological knowledge
broad range, accumulated within the framework of different paradigm coordinates, traditions, and
research fields. This analysis was actualized using the author's integrative-eclectic approach for
psychological phenomenology analysis, which justifies the efficiency of a multiplicity of sources
application [27]. The approach proposes the mechanism of interparadigm dialogue. It makes it possible
to find consistently shared meanings in the applied conceptual apparatus and research methods. As an
alternative to traditional logic, "or/or" is proposed dialogical logic "and/and." In the analysis of
ontological-epistemological foundations of existing psychological knowledge diversity, is used the
author's epistemological constructs "cultural-scientific tradition» and "sociocultural-dialogic
interdeterminism" [29]. A synthesis of the psychological knowledge existing diversity and trends in its
development understanding results is given in the sociocultural-dialogic interdeterminist metatheory of
psychological knowledge integration. The system-forming construct of metatheory is
interdetermination, denoting the process and result of the interaction of the whole elements, expressed
in the acquisition of a new quality, not reducible to a simple sum of its constituent elements. At the
same time, psychological phenomenology is considered from a systemic-synergetic approach, within
which the system is viewed as heterogeneous, nonlinear, dynamic, and self-organizing. The focus of
attention is the transitions from one qualitative state or the so-called bifurcation points and their
prerequisites or attractors that provide them. Considering psychological phenomenology in general and
cyberphenomenology, particularly as a process and result of bio-psycho-symbolic hetero-quality nature
interaction, consciously-unconsciously-existential psychic spheres, actualizing in the spaces of
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personality-environment-activity interdeterminants, conditions of balanced and disbalanced
functioning are analyzed.
4. Results and Discussion
Radical changes in the conditions of human existence, associated with the doubling of reality due to
technogenic and cyber, cause a rethinking of almost all psychological knowledge areas. This kind of
rethinking involves reflection or available knowledge audit in terms of its ability to provide time-
appropriate explanations and the basis for predictions. Moreover, this kind of reflection becomes
extremely popular as a resource for psychological knowledge development. [19].
In essence, we are talking today about a kind of parallel existence of two types of humanity, Homo
Rationalis and Homo Virtualis, who expands the received, old or traditional "ideal human model,"
"escapes the ideal human proportions, goes beyond the limitations of the natural environment by taking
advantage of the technological developments and the emerging virtual, cyber environments" [12, P. 1).
Virtual reality materialized from the fantasy world into real life and began to compete with real reality
with all possible positive and negative consequences. Virtual reality is currently theorised as a symbolic
heterogeneous medium, a complex semiotic technological digital environment or ecology (without
hierarchy), which "strongly tends to replace its actual physical detonates. A semiotic complex
technological digital environment, which shows a tendency not only to compete with the immediate
physical and social environment, but to assimilate, to control, and to dominate it" [7, P. 142]. In the
context under discussion, it is entirely appropriate to talk about the Homo Cyberis, immersed in
cyberspace and drowning in it.
This calls for further theoretical-empirical research and careful scrutiny on complex patterns in our
speedy, digitalised, and networked world, paving the way for exciting intellectual developments,
scientific findings, and interdisciplinary conclusions. Especially now that the "post-Internet," or the
"Next Internet," is emerging (from the dynamic convergence of Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics,
and the Internet of Things), new ambivalences, risks and challenges are being energised and posed for
the quality of democracy, citizenship, and the political public sphere [17].
The most challenging task is to find the basis for ordering the knowledge infinity in the field of
psychological phenomenology, connected with the person's being in the conditions of the social, cyber,
and technogenic environment. First, this being is multifaceted. Secondly, it is actualized in the complex
interaction of the biological, psychic, and symbolic heteroqualitative natures. Moreover, we must
consider that purely psychological components outside the biological substrate's context can be isolated
in abstraction only. Thirdly, the social nature itself is multifaceted in its representation in the
multicultural context. The context introduces an aspect of the pronounced hidden presence of cultural
differences, which cannot be ignored either in psychology or sociology and biology. Fourthly, on what
concretely or subjectedly, these fields are based on inventing the infinity and the variety of
psychological knowledge.
Human behavior is not a separate system. It functions under the conditions of a specific natural,
social, technogenic, and cyber environment, forming particular types of reality, the influence of which
psychology does not consider. Ignoring bodily substance in its interaction with the social environment
through the psychic's unique ability to translate the external into the internal and vice versa is nonsense;
however, it is typical for modern psychological knowledge. Not considering the heterogeneity of human
natures (bio-psycho-symbolic) is nonsense, the complex interaction of which results in behavior.
Likewise, this interaction has a mutually influencing and interdependent nature, leading to the formation
of a new quality that cannot be reduced to a simple sum of its constituent parts or elements. A human
(like the highly developed animal) adapts to environmental conditions, responding to external stimuli
and adapts to his abilities, finding a compromise of adaptive properties or a state of internal-external
balance. Furthermore, this state of balance is not static but fluid and follows the change in the social
and natural environment. Explicit confirmation of this is the growing popularity of the biopsychosocial
approach in various fields of knowledge, particularly in medicine [4].
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 377
The described qualitative features of being-in-the-world served as the basis for constructing a
generalized author's multidimensional synergetic model of psychological phenomenology
interdeterminants space's continuums presented in Fig. 2.
Figure 2: Multidimensional synergetic model of psychological phenomenology interdeterminants
space's continuums
Psychological phenomenology is not static. It changes itself and the surrounding environment and
vice versa in space and time. The system elements interaction is carried out in the conditions of multiple
surrounding realities – natural, social, technogenic, and cyber, which in turn are in a constant process
of mutual change and development. We understood a model as an integral set of internal and external
bases, which interdetermines the behavior's uniqueness. These dynamic processes are precisely
nonlinear, stepwise. Its general orientation is subordinated to achieving a state of balance between
internal and external interaction with the natural and social environment, and now with the cyber-
technogenic one.
Moreover, often these changes are asynchronous, leading to states of imbalance with the external
and internal world, both at the level of heteroqualitative natures and psychic spheres. Additionally, all
this takes place in changing nature, technogenic, social, and cyber environment in individual
psychological and activity dynamics. In this process, there are peculiar bifurcation points that figure
out the transition from one qualitative state to another.
A special issue is an interaction between the system elements, which leads to acquiring a new quality
that cannot be reduced to its components' simple sum and mechanisms. The most known attempts of
this problem solution relate to the names of outstanding metatheorists – K. Lewin [14] and A. Bandura
[2]. In his Field Theory, K. Lewin describes the behavior as a function of the personality and its external
environment В=f (P, E). Characterizing K. Lewin's approach as unidirectional, A. Bandura has offered
partly directional transformation of its formula B=ƒ(P⇄E), later being transformed into the principle of
reciprocal determinism, representing the interaction of elements as mutually directed.
Interdetermination has been proposed as such a mechanism. At the same time, interdetermination is
understood as a process and result of interaction, which manifests itself in the acquisition of a new
qualitative state by the whole. The interdetermination relation emphasizes the mutually affecting and
378 PART 2: Internet Psychology
mutually changing character, leading to qualitative changes in the interdeterminants components. Any
change in one of the elements inevitably leads to a change in all interconnected elements. The changes
that have occurred lead to the heterogeneous system quality transformation itself, receiving growths in
the form of expansion (or narrowing), rethinking, and re-experiencing the acquired experience. In this
case, we are talking about the dynamic aspect of phenomenology, and the nonlinear dynamic systems
approach productivity to the analysis in the psychic functioning temporary transformation [1, 3, 26].
These mutual influence on what is happening resources presents the R.M. Ryan and E.L. Deci self-
determination theory [18]. A person can influence what is happening, but he/she must also be aware in
its turn, what is happening has a direct impact on him/herself. Passive inaction leads to an increase in
external influence, and activity that is not burdened with cultural heritage involvement dooms him/her
degradation and increasing dependence on circumstances.
Interdetermination is dialogical in nature – an interaction based on the unconditional acceptance of
the heterogeneous (polyphonic = multivoiced) nonlinear dynamic systems elements Otherness, aimed
at finding the mutually acceptable structurally-substantive basis and forms (often of a compromising
nature) that contribute to the formation of jointly created, coordinated, and internally accepted states of
homeostasis (intersubjectivity, inter-existentiality, bio-psycho-social balance, and others), providing
their optimal co-existence in the context of a specific social and natural environment in the framework
of local (zone of proximal development) space and time and a more distant life perspective (zone of
distant development). Currently, it is becoming increasingly clear that the conditions of social existence
interdetermine consciousness [15]. Similarly, it is clear that this existence is affected by changes in the
natural, technological, and cyber environment, and the influence of the latter on human behavior,
including organizational and, especially, intercultural behavior, is extremely poorly understood. The
psychological phenomenology and its components have a staged nature, implying a transition from one
qualitative state to another, in a synergetic version, through the passage of specific points of bifurcation.
The sociocultural-dialogic nature of interdeterministic interaction is manifested in the interaction
between the elements of a heterogeneous nonlinear dynamic system, suggesting the dialogic nature of
thinking, manifested: firstly, unconditionally accepting the Other, secondly, expanding horizons of
comprehension, thirdly, gaining a new quality by the interacting parties; fourthly, the formation of
community, compatibility (intersubjectivity, inter-existentiality), contributing to mutual understanding
and coordinated interaction.
Due to intersubjectivity and inter-existentiality, it becomes possible to form shared meanings and
experiences that make up the formation of the shared sociality, without which society ceases to be so,
transforming into the mechanical unity of isolated individuals of a hedonistic sense, organizational and
acting according to external management. As I. Markova notes, "The loss of commitment to one's words
could result in the author's loss of self-identity and authenticity. Dialogicality implies a contract:
responsiveness and responsibility. There can be no word without a speaker—words have their history.
There can be no word without the self" [16, P. 258].
It should also understand that humans are not passive temporizers to this "new reality." They should
actively participate in its co-construction, co-building, striving to achieve a balanced state of interaction
with the social, natural, technogenic, and cyber environment. In turn, the achieved state of balance has
an inertial effect on a particular time perspective before achieving contradictions of the critical mass
state or bifurcation point. The transition to a qualitatively new state always presupposes changes in
worldview, attitudes, habits, behavioral algorithms, experiences and feelings, and many other things
determining their existential being-in-the-world.
Today it is becoming more and more evident that the new and innovative are displacing the old and
the obsolete in a dynamic process. In search of a new meaning of "being human (and of being social as
well), what we urgently need is to embrace exponential transformation and build a shared digital future
in an agreed, reflective, sustainable, inclusive, and value-sensitive manner, over against fault lines and
rifts" [22, P. 10].
5. Conclusion and theoretical implications
First, the system-synergetic analysis considers the psychological phenomena as heterogeneous,
nonlinear, and dynamic, not as closed and static. Second, cyberpsychology phenomenology should be
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 379
understood as having a sociocultural-dialogic-interdeterministic character. Third, overcoming the
limiting framework of personocentrism and environmentalism in isolation by giving them an
interdeterminist character and connecting an active interdeterminant acts as a mutually conditioning
part of the behavior process. Forth considers the ongoing changes in the context of acquiring a new
quality by the system, which cannot be reduced to a simple sum of the elements composing the whole.
Characterizing the presented metatheoretical approach in general, we can state the following:
1. The starting point is the complex bio-psycho-social culturally conditioned heterogeneous
nonlinear dynamic nature of the cyberpsychology phenomenology functioning in natural, social, cyber,
and technogenic reality. Awareness that many personalities, psychic disorders, and psychological
problems are associated with biological disorders manifested in psychic activity disorders and,
conversely, many of the biological level dysfunctions have a psychological underpinning (a glaring
example of which are numerous psychosomatic disorders). These and others are often provoked by
social disharmony (and, in turn, determine it), which is actualized in interpersonal contradictions and
related interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts, which cause discomfort in social interaction resulting
from dissatisfaction with oneself.
2. The biological – psychic – symbolic, as well as the conscious – unconscious – existential,
personality – environment – activity, and natural – social – technogenic – cyber realities, are in a state
of dialogic interdetermination, manifested in their interdependence and mutual influence, expressed in
acquiring a new quality not reducible to the simple sum of its constituent parts. A qualitative change in
one element inevitably leads to changes in designated heterogeneous system interconnected elements
and vice versa. In particular, unbalanced immersion in technogenic and cyber reality leads to various
kinds of dependencies. The acquiring of dynamic heterogeneous system new quality presupposes the
preliminary preparation of each of the elements for the future qualitatively new state, including the bio-
psycho-symbolic and cultural preparedness formation, awareness of the new state uniqueness and the
potential changes associated with its acquisition, preventive correction of potential unconscious
contradictions and inconsistencies fixed in the experience of the old new, contributing to the existential
acceptance of the altered self in his being-in-the-world and recognizing himself as a self-interdependent
agent.
3. The heterogeneous nonlinear dynamic system's optimal state is provided through the dialogue of
heteroqualitative natures, psychic spheres, and behavioral interdeterminants, ensuring the holistic
functioning balance by finding and mutually developing mutually acceptable compromises and co-
existence optimums. Once this balance is broken, various disharmonies and dysfunctions begin to
manifest, stimulating the overcoming resources search. The specificity of the dialogical form of
interaction in the dynamic heterogeneous system is manifested in the co-participants Otherness
unconditional acceptance in the functioning process, orientation toward finding mutually reinforcing
solutions, the formation of special kind bio-psycho-symbolic, consciously-unconsciously-existential
homeostasis, creating a common basis for coordinated and synchronized mutual understanding and
mutual development in the context of the specific natural, social, technogenic and cyber environment
and being carried out activities.
4. The deepening and expanding interaction with a qualitatively new type of cyber-technogenic
reality can lead to ecological balance violation of functioning in society. Digi- and cyber- autism
manifest in this kind of imbalance, expressed in self-isolation and existential loneliness. The destruction
of the being-in-the-world balance, in turn, can lead to severe mental disorders, the growth of which is
becoming increasingly evident. Therefore, one of the cyberpsychology's primary tasks should be
searching for possible forms of restoring the eco-balance and its conditions. Otherwise, Homo Ludens
may be replaced by Homo Cyberis and Homo Virtualis with all the ensuing destructive consequences.
As well as the need to shift the focus of cyberpsychology away from quantitative, experimental
approaches exploring the 'effects' of human-computer interaction and towards a focus on the subjective
experiences and sense-making of users in everyday contexts.
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