Psych Central

“He has cried himself to sleep every night
since he was seven. Now at age, 17 he is convinced that he wants to die and spare himself of the misery he has undergone for the past ten years of his life. “The world is an ugly place, I detest every breath I breathe, I live in a nightmare of depression, and I wish I could die- then maybe, and only then I will wake up! -Little Boy Blue.”

These are the words that appeared on my computer screen one day, while I was on-line in my virtual community, Psych Central. Little Boy Blue, is just one of the many emotional troubled people that I have met during my involvement in this world on the Internet devoted to helping people with psychological disorders.

According to Howard Reingold, virtual communities such as Psych Central are “social aggregations that emerge from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace” (Rheingold, 5). Psych Central is a social network of individuals who possess a common interest of sharing emotional support. It is a community where emotionally disturbed individuals both trained and untrained listen and counsel one another through a real-time chat line. The mental problems of the members range from either distressed, dysfunctional, or persons with a clinically diagnosed disorder.

I found this article (probably written in the 1995-1996 time-frame) (and this one too) while performing a routine search. A very interesting, and at times insightful, article about virtual communities and specifically, the one I began on the WBS in 1995, Psych Central.
The WBS was one of the Web’s first and most popular Web-based chat systems, and lives on in a forum-only form now.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 18 Sep 2009
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.