The internet has been a fantastic tool which has served a purpose to allow us to stay connected to others and gain instant access to the information we needed to know. During the start of the 21st century we readily accepted technological change as we could foresee the immediate benefits it could bring to our lives. We wanted this change to ensure we never had to spend too much time on tasks we wouldn’t want to do. We just wanted the fastest and easiest way to reach our goals and meet our needs. As soon as we would reach a point where a specific need was satisfied, we started to want more and demand more from technology.

Eventually as technology kept growing we slowly became more and more entrenched within it. For example, a lot of us own a laptop, a smartphone, a TV, an iPad, a gaming console and maybe even a smartwatch. A lot of us also wouldn’t be able to directly explain why all of these gadgets were needed at the same time other than to say that we just ‘had to have it’ because it’s new and it looks cool. However, with a lot of these devices we can waste away a lot of our time if we get sucked into the hype too easily.

We may even use cyberspace as a means to escape or disconnect from our offline reality. For example, have you ever found yourself scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed, passively observing and not even processing anything that you have read? Have you spent hours on social media watching videos you have a mild interest in, just to know what is trending? What we only realise afterwards is it is all just fake news, people posting content just for the sake of likes and popularity, but we are all sucked into it because we are all subdued by this addiction to the internet. It can seem like an endless cycle of tedium, which distracts us from getting to the tasks we need to do or want to do.

I want to help to break you out of this cycle and help you to gain back the control you may have lost. Technology was never meant to hinder the evolution of humanity, but now it seems as if it has weighed us down. I feel it is important that we can preserve humanity in the face of technology. As Albert Einstein said: ‘No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.’

We enjoyed the new luxuries that technological advancements have brought us and how it gave us access to easily connect with others and gain knowledge, however we have lost ourselves in the process of pursuing so much. We have lost clarity on why we are using technology so much, and how much technology is benefitting us. We are incapable of saying no and putting a pause to our screen time. We even leave ourselves vulnerable to online scams as we are not fully present while engaging with technology.

Bearing all of this in mind, the below online course will help you to:

• Understand the difference between who you are offline and online.
• Offer a comparison between the interactions you make offline and online, so you can find your authentic voice within that.
• Ensure that your values and beliefs are not compromised and influenced by the noise of the internet.
• Learn when and how to say no to the internet.
• Manage highly critical people and trolls better online.
• Gain practical tips you can use daily to take back your control and maximise the benefits of the internet while mitigating against the risks.
• Safeguard you from your personal and psychological tendencies to be drawn into the internet so that you can become a more active user rather than a passive user.
• Manage your feelings of depression or anxiety while using the internet.
• Get popular without getting likes and shares.
• Overcome the brainwashing of mass-media and maintain a critical awareness so that you can distinguish between what is true news and what is fake news.
• Understand the ways you can be scammed and what to do to stay safe online.

As a result of this, a new subfield in psychology has emerged: cyberpsychology. Cyberpsychology is the scientific study that delves on the relationship between human behaviour and digital technology.

I offer an online course in this exciting field. On this course you will gain a theoretical and contextual understanding of how technology, human beings and society interact. To access my course at a discounted price (£9.99), click reach out to me.

Azeem Butt is a cyberpsychologist and user experience researcher.