In this chapter, I discuss Internet abuse from a psychoanalytic perspective. Internet abuse refers to the misuse of the Internet that leads to deterioration of both public and individual welfares. | Section III Toward the Well-Being of the Employee Copyright 2004 Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. A Psychoanalytic Perspective of Internet Abuse 217 ChapterXI A Psychoanalytic Perspective of Internet Abuse Feng-Yang Kuo National Sun Yat-Sen University Taiwan ABSTRACT In this chapter I discuss Internet abuse from a psychoanalytic perspective. Internet abuse refers to the misuse of the Internet that leads to deterioration of both public and individual welfares. While past research has treated most computer abuse as the result of conscious decisions the school of psychoanalysis provides insight into how the unconscious mind may influence one s abusive conduct. Therefore I argue that effective resolution of Internet abuse requires the knowledge of the unconscious mind. Although modern knowledge of this domain is still limited I believe that this orientation is beneficiary to the construction of social systems embedding the Internet and their application to our work. Copyright 2004 Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 218 Kuo INTRODUCTION Today we live in a wired society where information technologies have permeated every part ofour lives. While we have cherished this achievement we are also becoming increasingly vulnerable to various forms of computer abuse that infringe upon our basic rights of freedom of speech privacy properties etc. To the professional IT managers in Taiwan this abuse seems especially troublesome because of the Internet s huge popularity and its negative image portrayed by Taiwanese public media. Indeed the sorts of abuse that are seen in the newspapers almost daily are no longer matters like flaming and defamation which we may call Internet abuse in the small. Instead the abuse is much broader in scope socially gang fighting broken families wholesale piracy and
