Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396

Assignment Cover Sheet

Subject Code: IACT201

Subject Name: Information Technology and Citizenship Rights
Submission Type: Essay
Assignment Title: Does A Cyber-Ego Extend Or Inhibit One’s Moral Development?
Student Name: Chhahita Muraalidhar Chhatwani
Student Number: 3371396
Student Phone/Mobile No. 0507298355
Student E-mail: chhahita@hotmail.com
Lecturer Name: Dr. Catherine Todd, Mrs. Zeenath Reza Khan
Due Date: Monday, 21 February 2011
Date Submitted: Monday, 21 February 2011

PLAGIARISM:
The penalty for deliberate plagiarism is FAILURE in the subject. Plagiarism is
cheating by using the written ideas or submitted work of someone else. UOWD has
a strong policy against plagiarism.
The University of Wollongong in Dubai also endorses a policy of non-
discriminatory language practice and presentation.
DECLARATION:
I/We certify that this is entirely my/our own work, except where I/we have given
fully-documented references to the work of others, and that the material contained
in this document has not previously been submitted for assessment in any formal
course of study. I/we understand the definition and consequences of plagiarism.

Signature of Student:
PLEASE NOTE: STUDENTS MUST RETAIN A COPY OF ANY WORK
SUBMITTED

Optional Marks:
Comments:

Lecturer Assignment Receipt (To be filled in by student and retained by Lecturer upon return of assignment)
Assignment Title: Does A Cyber-Ego Extend Or Inhibit One’s Moral
Subject: IACT201
Development?
Student Name: Chhahita Muraalidhar Chhatwani Student Number: 3371396
Due Date: Monday, 21 February 2011 Date Submitted: Monday, 21 February 2011
Signature of Student:

Student Assignment Receipt (To be filled in and retained by Student upon submission of assignment)
Assignment Title: Does A Cyber-Ego Extend Or Inhibit One’s Moral
Subject: IACT201
Development?
Student Name: Chhahita Muraalidhar Chhatwani Student Number: 3371396
Due Date: Monday, 21 February 2011 Date Submitted: Monday, 21 February 2011
Signature of Lecturer

pg. 1
Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396

Does A Cyber-Ego Extend Or Inhibit One’s Moral Development?

From 1973 onwards, there has been a immense development in internet. This has also led to the growth
and development of the virtual world today. The huge amount of websites, chat rooms have made
communication possible from any part of the globe. The over use of internet has made people addictive to
the virtual world. This has affected the values and moral behavior of people, which leads to a change in
their personality and moral development. Moreover, it affects their thinking towards life and the ways to
perceive it. It becomes tough for them to distinguish between real and virtual world.The non-existent
virtual world leads people to fall in a state of consciousness which is unlike the one in the real world. The
addiction and over involvement in the virtual world detaches them from the real world due to which they
interpret and act differently towards life in a manner that might not make sense to anyone or themselves
either. Knowing the fact that one is not right, no one can help it, is a fact in today’s world. (Johnson
2003). The ethics and amazing morals taught to people by their religion and culture as they grow up, are
different, altered and moreover lost after coming out of the virtual world. The virtual world is an
interesting journey that leads to people nowhere.

After entering and facing the virtual environment, people end up with confusing thoughts in their minds
about what is real and what one has left behind. At this point of time, Cyber Ego draws in. in other words,
it is a circumstance in which question arises in people’s mind regarding them in the virtual environment.
An environment made up of only non-natural intelligence where cyber ego forces a person to think of
oneself, about what type of image to portray, i.e. weather to follow values and beliefs that have been
taught to them from childhood onwards or to have an image that has always appealed them, but they
could never represent it due to their values and culture. Cyber ego changes a person’s approach towards
life and acts as a stimulus towards their emotional state and sensitivity. This all changes the individual as
a person into a very unusual person for only wrong reasons (Schultz 2005).

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF CYBER EGO IN MORAL DEVEOPMENT AND PERSONALITY

The basic thought behind individual’s to portray a false image in the virtual world is to attain a
subconscious level of mental satisfaction and inner contentment of having an image of
pg. 2
Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396
someone ore some kind that they always wanted to have but could not have it in the real world
as it did not meet the real world morals and ethics. The real world is the world with ugly reality
where they cannot do what they want to do and virtual world is the world that they think they are
worthy of or world that they want to live. And through cyber ego at some level these people are
able to attain desirable satisfaction of living the world on there on terms. For example- people
who are handicap who cannot talk or speak by birth and are excellent in writing skills and enjoy
blogging. Cyber-ego is a great platform for them to communicate and talk to people and convey
their stories and experiences.. (Rosinski 2007

With benefits there are many negative aspects on people of cyber ego in the virtual environment; one of
the factors that influences cyber ego after the adaption of virtual environment is the excessive
involvement in it, in other words, addiction. the addiction reaches to a level where people are on the
internet days, weeks and months and years continuously portraying there fake image all day long, which
in turn affects the individuals behavior at a great extent(Ess, 2006). The extent of the changes in an
individual behavior and personality depends on his or her engrossment due to cyber ego in the virtual
world. The more he or she gets engrossed the more they get closer to the virtual world environment and,
The behavior they follow in that environment. This causes changes in the behavior of the individual as
they leave the reality and there genuine behavior behind them and which will eventually lead to a
situation where he or she will face a clash, get aggressive and frustrated due to the change in the
behavior as the individual may have got use to the real world and behavior but not the people around him
who are still in the real environment and behavior, so the individuals false behavior will not associate
with the real life situation and environment . This in turn affects the individual mentally and causes an
immediate personality change completely contrary to the morals and values followed before. (George
2003). Furthermore these basic addictions can lead to addictions like coffee and drugs, pornography.
Firstly because internet is so vast that today it’s possible to find information about every small thing that
exist in the planet. And with the easy connectivity and usage of this new age tool people of any age can
get information on any topic or commodity about what it is and what are the characteristics. Therefore
this leads children of current generation have more easy access to any kind of information which can be
used for good or bad reasons. Considering the growing age children are very easily distracted to the
wrong path due to friends and pear pressure. Getting addicted at a smaller age could be much more

pg. 3
Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396
harmful than getting addicted at old age. Therefore these addictions can be faced by people of any age
and can get sever as they grow (Olson. 2009).

Another problem that is generally caused due to the cyber ego is cyber bullying.
Cyber bullying is generally when a cretin individual harasses the victim online
through messages-mails, videos and voice recordings to take revenge over some
personal bitterness or recent. And with the arrival of new technologies over the
years has taken old school bulling and pin pointing and cruel tantrums to another
level. “A research by the Child Health Promotion Research Centre found that 59% of
school children pretend to have a different identity online and 17% children did it to
get away with the bullying”().Today’s growing world everyone has easy connectivity
to internet everything on internet is more public and permanent as it could be hard
in many ways to remove a particular comment or information . Cyber harassment
can be done in many ways by sending insulting e-mails or by spreading fake rumors
on social networking sites where everything is almost public also by cruel
comments on chartrooms and school forums. Therefore once a victim is made fun
on internet it effects there life considerably as everything is open on internet and
the news runs faster than light. Not only that the rumor dose not leave the victim
just at the place of harassment but follows them to home and every place in the
town if the city is a small place. For example a girl Alex teka of age 12 years old
living in New Zealand killed herself in 2006 due to continues bullying by senior girls
in school. They would send nasty mails and give scary phone calls for a period of 1
year and Alex being young sensitive girl could not take it for a longer time.
Therefore every individual is different and everyone has a different nature from one
another and some people are sensitive, some are aggressive, some have the
strength to overcome such depression and some don’t. Everyone can perceive the
idea of cyber ego in different sense a sensitive individual may end up hurting
themselves like Alex or some may aggressively use it to bully or hairs the victim for
personal or entertainment reasons. Therefore the outcome of cyber ego tends to
get adverse if not controlled or practiced in a limit. (N.A, 2010)

pg. 4
Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396
Finally I would like to conclude that there is a thin line between the positive and
negative aspects of cyber ego. And there are various reasons that explain why
people get into cyber ego i.e. people do that generally because they want to
experience the feeling of being what they always wanted to be in the real world this
basically helps them gain internal satisfaction which leads to mental peace at
subconscious level, but this is just the way they perceive it in the particular
situation.though the virtual and real world move towards the same direction In
actual world there are many negative outcomes of cyber ego that come forward one
of which is addiction to the virtual world which cause individuals to part ways from
real world which causes a clash in the real and virtual moral and ethics. Second
negative aspect is online bullying and harassment therefore it’s a general
philosophy anything that is done in limit always good ,doing anything over limit can
cause a lot of problems .in this case also there is a very fine line of limit for cyber
ego which if crossed can have negative effect .moreover it is the personal choice of
the individual to take cyber ego to negative prospect no one is forced into it. It’s
just the choice of a tool for good or bad and these is a very fine line between them
(Johnson 2003)

pg. 5
Chhahita Chhatwani

3371396

Reference List

• Brennan, L.L. &Johnson,V.2003,Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of InformationTechnology;

Information Science Publishing, [E-Book], availableat: http://books.google.com/books?
id=n3D4qihAsTcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0 [Accessed 18 Feb 2011]

• Schultz R. A. 2005,Contemporary Issues in Ethics and Information Technology, IRM Press,

[online], Availableat: http://books.google.com/books?
id=FSP72JKW0PoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ethics+information+technology&as_brr=3&rvie
w=1&sig=wob8QAxbw7Z2zS6TSXFW7G1a23g#PPP1,M1
• [Accessed date: 11 June 2008]

• Hongladaram, S & E s s , C . 2 0 0 6 , Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives

• , I G I Global, [online], Available at: http://www.capurro.de/hongladarom.html, [Accessed 10
June2008]

• De George, R. T. 2003,the Ethics of Information Technology and Business

(Foundations of Business Ethics), Wiley-Blackwell, [online], Available at:
http://books.google.ae/books?
id=pDs3b2R8qaEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA284,M1,
[Accessed 8 June 2008]

• N.A. 2006. CYBER EGO. [ONLINE] Available

at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44079138/Cyber-Ego. [Accessed 18 February 11]

• Tammy Olson. 2009. Cyber ego and its effects on morality , personality and
behavior . [ONLINE] Available
at:http://www.mightystudents.com/essay/Cyber.ego.effects.96598. [Accessed
19 February 11]

• N.A. 2010. Cyber Bullying. [ONLINE] Available

at: http://egoeveryday.com.au/cyber-bullying. [Accessed 19 February 11]

pg. 6