Cognitive and Social Interaction in Cyberspace: Prosthetic Functions of the Internet Kristina Gulvik Nilsen

This is a qualitative social constructivist research of individuals living in the area of Bergen, Norway and their daily Internet use. I argue that we are living in a prosthetic culture within the cyberculture. Cyberspace is influenced by offline environmental space and humans interconnect with the Internet and ICT-devices; humans interact with other humans through cyberspace, constructing what I have referred to as social/wired cyborgs. Moreover, humans may socially distribute their individual cognition online. I have studied informants' lives in cyberspace through the phenomenology of perception and how the Internet enhances and extends their cognitive, social, and motor skills/abilities. In addition my research consists of three individuals with reduced mobility and four able-bodied individuals.