Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality

“Instantly engaging and eminently accessible . . . . an enlightening and cautionary exploration of an increasingly intrusive aspect of modern society.” —Booklist

While the Internet can enhance well-being, Elias Aboujaoude has spent years treating patients whose lives have been profoundly disturbed by it. Part of the danger lies in how the Internet allows us to act with exaggerated confidence, sexiness, and charisma. Aboujaoude dubs this new self our “e-personality” and argues that its traits are too potent to be confined online. Offline, too, we’re becoming impatient, unfocused, and urge-driven. Virtually You draws from Aboujaoude’s personal and professional experience to highlight this new phenomenon. The first scrutiny of the virtual world’s transformative power on our psychology, Virtually You demonstrates how real life is being reconfigured in the image of a chat room, and how our identity increasingly resembles that of our avatar.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004HD5P60
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (February 7, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 7, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 546 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 388 pages