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In other words, online behavior is fundamentally different from face-to-face behavior, and the design of Internet technologies is one of the leading factors underlying these differences. I have taken to calling this notion technological pressure because of its similarity to peer pressure. Like peer pressure, technological pressure pushes us to conform to a certain type of behavior, whether or not we are consciously aware of it. However, just like peer pressure, technological pressure is not the cause of behavior. We each ultimately bear individual responsibility for our actions, even in the face of external pressures. Technological pressure suggests that these forces act on us in powerful—and perhaps subsconscious—ways, but we still have the ability to freely choose our own behaviors.
Understanding how technological pressure works, however, is only the first step. By understanding how these psychological mechanisms operate in online environments, we can begin to develop new online environments that promote the types of behavior that we want. For example, if we are interested in uninhibited brainstorming, we might want to develop an environment that reduces the salience of power relationships (i.e., the boss vs. the employees). If we are looking to create a decision-making environment, however, we might want an environment that explicitly gives greater importance to the boss’s comments. In order to consciously develop these types of environments, however, we need to know how the medium influences the behaviors that we care about.