Abstract:

Focusing on the consumer, the authors of this paper have developed a framework suggesting how use of the internet with its overtones of levity, privacy, and spontaneity – can affect, and be affected by, personality and mood. The issues examined fall into two categories: the psychology of the internet user at play, using reversal theory as a theoretical basis for our inspection; and how to leverage some existing and new techniques to get, and use, the best information we can about internet users.