Thank you, thank you for inviting me and giving an opportunity for this platform and I’m really happy somebody’s recognizing the field of cyberpsychology across the globe. I’m happy for this thing. Rakesh, before we get into the questions I’d really like to find out more about you in terms of your background and then also what that pivot point was for you in terms of understanding cyberpsychology and it becoming part of what a big part of what you do.
So giving a brief introduction about my journey in the field of psychology and cyberpsychology. So initially when I thought of entering into the field of psychology, so I was always curious to know about like how a psychologist can understand the prescription, the medical prescription. So my father he was a doctor, he was an MBBS doctor here, so I asked him that I wanted to know about medicine.
He said you have done your master’s in psychology so it’s possible to understand the medicine part. I said no how can I understand the prescription? He said why you want to understand the prescription? I said if a patient has some drug-induced problems or something which is a reactive, how can I understand this is a problem of stress or because of drugs? He said it’s too difficult because you can’t do medical now, it’s a psychology field. He asked me to go for some alternative thing for this part.
So my career started by joining a pharma company just because of this curiosity and I joined a pharma company as a medical representative to understand the medicines part and there I joined as a MR, as a medical rep and for six months I worked in that company to understand all the medicines. I got free of cost training from the company on the medical advisors in the continuous medical education program and they even paid me the salary also. So I was very happy that six months I got training and in the sixth month then I resigned from the company and I told the company that actually I wanted to learn medicines and I know no one was able to train me so I got a training here and I want to become a psychologist.
So but during that period my performance was very high and in fact I sold a cosmetic product to the very rural pharma farmers. So the company was surprised that how did you sold a pharma a cosmetic product. So that was my first training when they requested me to train the other colleagues of mine to give training to them.
So the journey started with this confidence and then I worked for Ayurvedic psychology. I was a professor with homeopathy college. I was there with dietetics department for seven years.
I worked with sexology. I worked with a pathology. Then I was working in a physiotherapy department as a visiting faculty there.
So I worked with 11 different different colleges medical colleges to train psychology student and the medical part. So I always thought of having an eclectic approach during my early learning period also. During that period Orkut was very popular.
WhatsApp was just to get yet to get introduced. And in 2008 and 9 I had a thought in my mind like how people can basically use online platforms for counseling so that the stigma can be removed. Because I was struggling 25 years back in India being in the field of psychology was a big struggle.
In fact when I got married at that moment it was a big challenge whether I should continue with my wife or continue with my profession. So basically my in-laws and everybody said you have choice now. Either you leave this thing or you do.
I said I want both the things together. So it was a big challenge for me for the struggle. So when Orkut was there I was just thinking like there should be some platform where online consulting should be there.
And I started studying about the behavior of how people are going to internet cafes paying a one hour rent there at that moment and going for online chatting and other things. So during that period I thought later on apart from the cyber security apart from the safety which was a very primitive part at that moment in India. The people will be addicted there and there’s going to be a field called cyber psychology.
I started reading about it and I came to know there are very few pioneers in the world working on this thing. And I tried to convince a lot of police commissioners, bureaucrats and a lot of policy makers in India that this is the field which you should think about. They thought you know I’m just crazy.
I am talking about something which is going to be 2050 or 60. So they were not recognizing me at that time. But one commissioner who was a engineering graduate he recognized me and he said no I really appreciate and we will start with the police department here and we’ll invite the principals.
So he invited around 400 principals and the day one when I went for the lecture which was only for a one hour session and he was expecting me 10 to 15 powerpoint slides. I prepared 2000 slides and he was surprised. He said you are you’re talking about 2000 slides.
I said I’m not going to say today but this is my research and this is for my future just because you gave me an opportunity. I thought I will avail this opportunity for all my PPTs. So the day one the principals they were surprised to know like these types of problems are going to come up and they said we want sessions in our school since then I had been working now with minister of home affairs, minister of external affairs.
I worked on cyber terrorism, cyber radicalization. I worked with mobile addiction clinics. I have my own mobile addiction.
I started with certificate diploma courses and the complete ecosystem I have developed now in last 15 years and the ecosystem’s last part which I’m coming in month of June in Goa in India one of the beach tourist placed in India is one of the first worst digital rehab center in an island where people will come down there to get rid of the mobile addiction and someone has donated me a 20 acre island basically for this novel project. So that’s the complete ecosystem currently I have developed. This was my journey.
Wow that is quite a journey and as you say so varied. There’s so many different things you’ve done within your working career but come from a really interesting background of kind of medical side of things. Do you think that that helps you from the addictions clinics that you’re looking at? Do you think that helps from the biological perspective of how people operate with technology and the impact it has on them? Definitely.
So whenever I will create awareness in schools like I have around 900 workshops commitment in one year for schools. So in a year we deliver 900 workshops to create awareness about digital wellness. So the primary part of the workshop is basically more of scientific part the cause-effect relationship of all these things how dopamine works how the endorphin and oxytocin melatonin how it basically social engineers are trying to control all these things and apart from that even on the constructive part also where we can basically work with the neurological aspect.
So that helps a lot to me and as I said I always believe in eclectic part. Initially also when I used to talk to my colleague and say I don’t believe only on talk therapy I think diet is also important. Mind, brain everything is important.
So they used to think if you don’t endorse your own colleagues I said no a person sitting in front of me his genetics his biological his metabolic his dietary part everything is responsible for his behavior. So same thing happens in the online virtual world also. Both the worlds are now we can consider online and offline world.
Yeah I think that’s a lot of psychologists approach technology from a you are just a human perspective rather than taking all those different elements of who we are into account when we’re thinking about technology and how it affects us and how we use it and that’s I think why cyber psychology is so interesting because we look at so many different elements of the technologies. It’s not just the physically I’m scrolling and I talk to someone there’s so many different ways it affects us too. So you started a certificate in cyber psychology and you’ve been running it for a few years now haven’t you? Certificate courses we have started in 2020-21 during the lockdown period yeah and fortunately I got a very good mentor and a coach Dr. Vaya ma’am.
She’s a legendary forensic psychologist of India and she was a director she’s a director there basically with Rajshri Raksha University which is one of the only police university of India run under the ministry of home affairs. So it’s under the directly under the ministry so she endorsed this thing and she called me up during the lockdown period and she said this is quite interesting and she said why don’t we start this course and we came across with the certificate and diploma courses and every three months four months we have a new batch for that and we are trying to create a human resource in India now and even in further course very soon maybe we’ll come up with a council also for this thing. So every three or four months you’ve got a whole new batch of students that come.
Yeah. How many people are on each batch that comes on? So we have 30 batch of 30 students in one batch. Okay.
So that is the limited online if that’s an online course yeah and we haven’t started offline course yet we are doing online itself so we restrict to 30 for the interactions so that it can be interactive or even then also usually what happens if we go for 50 to 100 students a lot of students they don’t open up the screen throughout the course they have put about the blank screen invisible so we said going for a volume would they disconnect us from the students so we kept only 30 so that we can give them projects and they can at least do submit assignments. Okay so it means that they can interact with each other on an individual basis or on a group basis and learn from each other and bounce off each other rather than just listening to a lecture all the time. We give practical things also case studies practical everything.
Now the university that you work with and one of the things I saw on their website that it’s a institute of national importance what does that mean and why is it nationally important? Yeah so in India basically there are two types of university one is the state university which is run by the state government we have a democratic federal state system here then we have a central government here so there are two different universities one which is run by state one which is run by central so this university was basically run by the state Prime Minister Modiji state Gujarat so he opened up this university and his initiation was this thing and later on he became a Prime Minister and then he made it now a central university so now it is under the Ministry of Home Affairs Home Affairs where all the police department and Ministry of everything is run so that’s now directly under the supervision of the Home Affairs so that’s why it is given the its national importance because it’s a national level university now. Okay wow that’s very cool and it’s great that you’ve got that as a backing and working with them on that because it gives what you’re doing so much more credibility than just you on your own doing a oh I am a cyber psychologist I want to run a course. So basically I am an ERF there and I have a center of excellence jointly with them for cyber psychology it’s the first COE of India for cyber psychology I think it’s the only one currently we don’t have any COE for cyber psychology so we have that’s the forensic and police university so all over India’s intelligence bureau right from the CBI to all the police department they get trained there basically so to reach to the common people and to the bureaucrats it was the best university to come up with this course and we are doing very good now and we are coming up with researchers also we have students now slowly we are starting PhD also there a lot of things are coming up now.
Wow that’s so exciting this really is pioneering work that you’re doing in India you’re kind of like the front the front person in the pioneering world of cyber psychology in pacific Asia which is amazing so you are director of cosmic integrated institute of psychology and security I have to read that because I can’t remember and it’s you shortened it to SIPS I think it is so tell me about that and how how you started that and what what it because you just rebranded as well haven’t you yeah so tell me about brand as well so basically SIPS was earlier central India institute of psychological science because I I am from central India the mid of the India basically Nagpur so it was termed in that way and we initially started like to train school counselors and like various workshops and seminars that was the initial purpose of starting this institute but as the cyber psychology thing picked up I saw that every city were demanding cyber psychologists from me and coach also trainers also so we we thought of coming up purely on cyber psychology rather than going for other mental health training so now basically the complete name which is cosmic we have rebranded now central India to cosmic that is the complete world and integrated that’s the integration of psychology and cyber security together and again we have put up security that includes everything right from the e-security to the national security everything is covered in that thing so that’s the logo also you can see there is a logo of I basically I formation is there with the yellow and pink and blue color so that also stands for basically a lot of color combinations of psychology so now the brand rebranding is done in that way that we are a cosmic integrated institute where we are working on psychological things which is connected to national security and the cyber security so we have many things with us we are also working with the army we are now in the process of delivering sessions to the army people the new recruits on mental health especially with the work-life balancing with them so we have many projects around 40 projects are there under CIPS we are doing CSR activities also we have many CSR activities we are coming up with the first free mental health counseling center in India in Nagpur and most probably this is just yesterday only I got an approval it’s going to be the first robotic free counseling center. Wow so tell me about the robotic counseling centers that using an artificial intelligence or how does that work? Yeah so the yesterday only we got an approval for the CSR that you can come up with this thing and they pass me the budget for that thing so I have inquired across the globe but currently we have seen around two or three people are there those who are working on robotic most of them they are working on chat box and basically they are working on open AI system and but I was keen on putting up a robot in the chamber where people can come up and they can just talk to the robot rather than texting with the robot so that was my part so yesterday I got so let’s see maybe within a month or so I’ll be again coming on interacting with you and that’s going to be the first robotic counseling center where people would be putting a VR or robot and all together and non-stigmatic non-biased way they can do the counseling part. So do you think that that people will have a better therapeutic experience with the robots and AI than they would with a human? Do you think the robot takes up that power dynamic that often is in the room when you do face-to-face or even online therapy? Yeah because I was because being from the cyber psychology field I have put up a scope of cyber psychology in all the areas right from the school problems to the mobile addiction to the terrorism around 40 professions are there so one is basically about the gaming specialist or gaming developer and robotic part also so with the AI and cognitive engineering working with the cyber psychologist so in fact I was being pro with this part but again another part is there whether the how is the treatment part whether a person will be more comfortable with robot so yeah researchers say basically people are more comfortable with the robot like when they feel the robot is unbiased is non-judging and there is a lot of information available with the robot he has the precise evidence-based treatment available with trillions of data with him and the most important thing the patient or the client thinks okay he will not disclose this to anybody because he doesn’t know anybody in the society like me being a popular person in our city after my popularity or being with so many schools colleges and NGOs I faced one problem like because of my popularity a lot of people they didn’t turn up to me because they know me they feel I know all my friends they common friends are there so I usually tell my wife I said I am paying the cost for the celebrity for being a popular that a lot of people they don’t turn up to me because they feel I am known to everybody so yeah the robot is not known he’s not a person he he stored every data with him so one part is there and second thing the sensors and slowly gradually the AI along with the technology the sensors which can be used for the pulse and BP and other gradually it’s going to come up so I think robot will be able to assess the facial is able to assess the facial expression which we can miss because sometimes we are into a space we have burnouts sometimes we are not in that state to understand to pick up that point which a person is trying to tell us but since robot has that AI system along with that so you can pick up that phrases so I am going to the research part now to what it but with the psychosis but with something like where suicidal ideations are there or there are emergencies crisis help intervention is there I think there we will not recommend for that thing but the normal problem like relationship counseling trauma little bit issues teenage issues children coming up for various motivational interviewing reinforcements there I think they will be very much comfortable already they are working with chat GPT already they are on Instagram and Snapchat already they are doing it so we cannot reverse them now so it’s better to join them and be a part of the life then do you think that’s an AI will be able to understand empathy in a similar way to human or do you think it’s just that it’s about the phrases that people say and they kind of interpret those phrases in a specific way that then showcase some element of empathy or do you think it’s kind of the tone of voice and those kind of things that the machine learning picks up that they can then kind of do the empathy kind of thing yeah so but here on the so psychosocial perspective and generational science which we can discuss here for two minutes like what I am seeing on my personal analysis and my research like the Gen Z and the alpha both the generations they even lack empathy their sensitivity is down already so when Gen Z they are working with me now just pass out students I see very lack of empathy with them they are not so sensitive what we were as a millennials and some millennials working for the field of psychology they say sir how does it matter if somebody has a breakup how does it matter somebody has died in the family why she is so depressed this is not a big deal they always talk in front of me in this way like we were think used to think earlier 20 years back this is a big trauma she is facing there is a big problem now they say this is not a problem so I think the empathy has already been diminished with the Gen Z and alpha it has been the past story with millennials and Generation X so I think for them those who are even not defined with this empathy part if they are doing it with the robot so they are same each other yeah for a millennial it may be a problem when he sits in front of robot he may be expecting a larger empathy from the robot because he was from the face-to-face generation and from the earlier mobile previous mobile generation now these people are completely on mobile and they they don’t want to confront and come and talk to me on face-to-face for counseling they say why don’t you do online I said you stay in my city just two kilometers away from my house why don’t you come for offline they say I’m comfortable online so already they have chosen that part for the mental health so that’s the reason I shifted in that way okay let’s join them rather than asking them to get the perceptions of adoption of basically millennials and Generation X so that is the reason empathy will be lacking definitely but Gen Z alpha will not recognize this thing I agree with you I think that’s a really good point is that trying to get them into our space of kind of millennial Gen X world of we like face-to-face we prefer talking to people and to shoehorn them into that comfort what we find comfortable was actually unfair on them and it makes it more of a power dynamic and they don’t quite when they’re not they’re not comfortable then they can’t open up so it’s a really good point didn’t think about that yeah wow that’s amazing stuff you’re doing
So going back to your cyber security side of things, I saw that you got Dr Mary Aiken to do a talk with you. She’s one of my heroes in cyber psychology, so I’m very envious that you got her to do a talk. Yes, in fact everybody’s hero.
We all admire her. We adore her, basically, what the work she has done. Yes, absolutely.
So what did she talk about and what did she do with you? Did she help you launch the certificates or what was her role there? So I have a basic protocol like whenever I start the certificate course, so I invite one international guest from the field of cyber psychology. So initially I have invited Linda Kai also from UK. She also was one of the guests.
Oh, another one of the heroes. So Mary Aiken, she also was there. So Rahul Jha from Intech also from ITUC also I invite.
So always I’ve searched somebody who are working the world leaders in the field of cyber psychology and they can come. So she was there as a chief guest for the program and she spoke about the research part about how India and we can, she can just collaborate with us for various things. And we are just in the process of doing something good and asking the Indian government like to come up with some process or program with Mary.
So that last time she said, you invite me for India and I’d like to deliver a session for the Indian bureaucrats and the policy makers there. Oh, brilliant. She’s very knowledgeable about that stuff to have her come and chat to you and your key audience is such a bonus.
So in terms of the certificate going forward, so you’ve launched a few years ago, but you really now growing it substantially. What do you think your vision is for certificates in the next kind of five years? Yeah, I think now the human resource, the workforce for cyber psychology is required across the globe. I was there last year at Japan for the United Nations IGF program.
And there I came to know from many countries that they are not still aware about cyber psychology and they are inviting me to their countries for to deliver or to do something about cyber psychology. So I was very happy to understand that people are accepting this across the globe now, but still the human resource is lacking. So in India now, since I created this awareness now, so many cities here, many universities, they have asked me to start courses.
We’ve come now interacting and been finalizing with many universities in India. They wanted to come up with COE. And since we are tied up with our Rastri Raksha University for this particular title certificate in cyber psychology, so we cannot give this title to another university.
We are trying to put up in cybernetics or some other course there. But now every university, they want to come up with this course, credit courses also. And with human resource development, the schools now, they wanted to come up cyber counselors in school in India, not only the school counselor, but the cyber counselors, those who can treat only the addiction part and the mobile screen time.
In India, there is a big problem going on. The children here are sleeping at morning 5am. The whole night they are awake.
So there is a big problem going on. Sleep is the biggest problem now. And they go to school drowsy, then irritability, anger issues, mobile gaming issues, even a lot of cases of deep vein thrombosis, cardiac attacks, suicides.
It’s on a rampant level everywhere it’s going on. Every day, the front page of any city has one or two news of mobile suicides or gaming addictions. So it’s a big problem.
Even with the gambling part also, younger generations, they have entered into crypto and other gambling, poker and other gambling. So there are also a lot of problems are going on. So now we can say we are on the bombshell at this moment.
It’s going to blast. So every parent they know, only thing that everybody’s looking for a solution. So I’ve been alone, I thought I cannot reach to each and every family.
And just making videos or putting up reels and shots cannot actually solve the problem. It can only orient them about the problem. And the problem is known by everybody that they can see the child throughout the day sitting in a room and playing gaming.
So they don’t need to understand what is gaming addiction, they are suffering from that thing. So we need human resource and train human resource. So that’s the reason this certificate course has a wider scope across the thing like right from the cyber security professional to the psychology students, postgraduates, doctors, school teachers, anybody can do this thing.
And they can initially at least create awareness, they can coach in school, they can go and train in school. And when it comes to the clinical aspect, they can refer it to a psychologist. That is one part.
And once those psychologists, those who are doing this course, we train them specially for addiction and de-addiction part, we have special batches for that thing, like how to make them detox, how to give them alternatives, how to make them more, this is what basically we train them specially with the psychological fraternity. So we have different courses for that. So it’s a big scope all over the world, in SAARC countries, Asia Pacific, European countries, everybody’s saying is that how we can come up this course with our European Union and other places.
Only thing we have to reach through all like people like you and make a consortium partners with each other and come up with these courses. Absolutely. So it sounds like more than anything, you need practical help for families, for schools, for so many different institutions, they just need something practical.
And as you say, there’s kind of anecdotally, people see their children struggling with the phone and struggling with addiction, struggling with suicide. But that and they know there’s an issue, but they don’t quite know how to solve it. And do you find in the mass media that there is a lot of scared stories around mobile phones rather than practical help? That’s true.
That’s true. Everybody’s telling anxiety. Everybody’s creating and inducing anxiety and right from the consumer products to everything.
And the cost effect relationship no one is able to make understand because a lot of solutions can be at home itself. It can be sorted at home like simplest way when I deliver session for the certificate or by workshop, I usually tell them right from the baby boomers to the gen Z and alpha how they behave online. And what are the cyber behaviors? Many problems are sorted because of that they are able to understand we belong to X and Y. So obviously, there is a difference of behavior.
So this is a small insight which can be developed at home itself. So rather than telling them, okay, suicide is happening, suicide is happening, it’s better to tell them why the suicides are happening and what’s your communication role, how you can talk in short to this emojis generation to this short generation. So this is what I think like online everywhere, even in India also with our colleagues and they daily they put up shots and videos, reels and Instagram, indicating the symptoms, they want clients.
So my mission and my vision, I can say my overall contribution to the planet is basically to somewhere bring a social impact. So because I came to know Caroline, and a few years back that I cannot eat more than my hunger, that’s the limited thing I have, I can eat my two spoons of rice or something more than that is always it. So there was somewhere I wanted to contribute to the society, give back to the society.
And then even my child, he’s basically an alpha, he’s a 13 year old child. So he will also be surviving in this society where everybody’s going to be insane zombies. So what type of society I’m going to give it give to them same like what climate has done, we have done the mistakes, our children are facing the climatical problems now.
Yeah, yeah. This is my vision and mission. Like this is the reason I’m moving across the globe, asking people if we are not able to sort it out now in the next five to 10 years, it’s going to be irreversible, same like climate.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. There is an element of and this whole generation that’s growing up now we laying down foundations for them, neurological foundations, if not social foundations and cultural foundations that in a lot of ways irreversible.
And I think growing up because I grew up analytical, so we didn’t have computers when I was growing up, not neither in school or university or in the home. And it’s only in my mid 20s when I got my first mobile phone. And those were the ones.
And it was it was only later on that I kind of got got into the smartphone. So from my perspective, I’d be looking at this generation from the younger generation from it. I grew up analytical world.
So for me to try and understand that is very difficult. So I agree there’s an element of education across generations of children. This is how your parents see things and parents.
This is how your children see things. And let’s find a common ground that we can talk about how technology is changing us and changing how we interact. And with that in mind as well, one of the things I often say to people, especially as adults and parents, is that children watch us and how we use our technology and they often copy it.
So we talk about screen time for them, but we don’t often think about our own screen time and what our children see. And they see this is how you be an adult. You do this with your phone and you don’t look at me.
You just do this and you work. So do you think that has an impact of how we operate our technology as grown ups and how that impacts our children in the home environment? Obviously, but it’s not only the sole reason for children getting into this particular addiction or online behavior, because even those parents, those who are not using the mobile or not been much on the screen, even their children are also basically into the mobile problems. Nowadays, I have so many parents for the middle class people, those who don’t have time for mobile, but they come up with the children, they have mobile addiction with the children.
Because the most problematic thing is the peer group influence. The peer influence is so high outside. They need validation.
They need approval. There are internal needs which are there into the subconscious mind. And they want these needs to be satisfied from the peer group.
So if they don’t belong to that group, they don’t do anything, they don’t belong to that group. So that need of validation, approval from the group, from the peer group is the most problematic thing that is triggering them. So I guess that is the most thing where we need to make them aware.
In our sessions, basically what we do in schools, on the day one and the day two, a lot of parents, they come up to schools and they say, what type of session was conducted? Our children, they came back home, and they were putting stickers on the front camera. And they said, you know, I want to install PUBG. So principals are very happy.
They said, these are my parents, they turn up today, and they said they are happy. So what was the session held? I said, they only, we created the insight. They only, we don’t moral police them then.
We did not tell them not to do, not to do. We only told them what exactly happens in the social darknet, how it goes. So they are quite intelligent enough.
They are 5G now. They are not 3G and 2G. They are 5G.
Their absorption is very fast. They understand the language in a short course. They don’t want lectures and big lectures.
They want, okay, let us know what is the problem. We’ll sort it out. Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting perspective.
So it’s not about telling people what to do. It’s telling them or educating them on the implications and how it affects you. And they make up their own mind and make their own decisions on how to go forward with technology.
That’s fantastic. It’s a great way, I think, to help people, give them tools to make better decisions around technology. So you, there’s so much that you want to achieve and so many things that you want to get done in the next five years.
There’s massive ambitions. How do you think you’re going to make that work? Because as you said, you can only eat, if you can only eat two spoons of rice, that’s all you can eat. So I’m working now and hard on this thing.
I know like maybe a few things will be left behind. Still I have a long way to go. But currently the complete ecosystem or the complete dots, currently it has connected.
So if you see right from the schools, we have a lot of schools here, leading schools of India, those who are running our programs in school. So we have this year’s commitment of 900 workshops. We have companies and corporates, they are doing program for that.
We have government missionaries and ministries, those are working with us. And then we have private sectors that now with the resort part. So currently, the only thing which is left is global aspect.
So globally also now I had been visiting twice or thrice outside and getting a lot of invitations from all. The only thing what I’m seeing is lacking is getting human resource for this thing, a trained human resource, which I think, because otherwise, I will not have a legacy to follow. This will end up with me itself when I go.
So maybe in India, very few people will come up with this thought, okay, this was a field somebody thought about. So second line, to create a second line is becoming a very challenging task for me. And when I create a second line, they feel, sir, it’s not so financially useful.
I’m not getting so much of financial benefits what I get from other fields. So they don’t sustain in that way. And there are no funders, no VC funding.
No one is able to accept it till now also that they will fund this thing. I’m doing it on the bootstrap from last many years. And my own company’s valuation is quite good.
But then also, I’ve spoken to a lot of corporates, those who are, you know, followers of me, but when it comes to cyber psychology, they know the problem is there, but they feel it’s not a commercial viable thing. It’s a social project. They don’t consider still a cyber psychology or psychology to be a commercial venture where we can reach the masses.
So I’m looking forward for somebody who can take under his umbrella, under the corporate umbrella, or the government umbrella. And I’m trying to reach our Prime Minister, I’m trying to reach to the top Home Minister here, so that once they come to know about this part that for how hard I am working on the Asia part. So I think same like has what yoga we have given to the world, cyber psychology will be also a part of India to the world.
Yeah, absolutely. I like the way you put that, because I think that’s true in a lot of countries, even in the UK, really, cyber psychology is slightly more of a social issue than a commercial venture. And it hasn’t quite broken into the commercial world yet in a way that the majority of people recognize what it is and how it can add value to the companies or institutions.
But I think there’s a lot of work that all of us have to do to educate and get people understanding the value that is cyber psychology and the value it adds to humans, to culture, to society. So I think, yeah, the work you’re doing is phenomenal in India. And we all need to follow your example and make cyber psychology a lot more commercially viable, because then it becomes a generic knowledge base rather than just a little social project and well done you.
So well done. Well done for all the work you’ve done. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words and appreciation. It means a lot. Basically, it is it’s hard work being a pioneer in any field.
And this is a really tough one, because there’s so many people who are crying out for help. But how do we actually get the word out to them and give them the help they need, but also make it financially viable? Because it’s a lot of hard work to be a pioneer. It takes a lot of energy.
So well done. Are there any other things you want to kind of chat about that you haven’t spoken about? Because you’ve spoken about lots of amazing things that you’re involved in. But is there anything that you haven’t covered yet that you thought, oh, I really want to just chat about this? So I just wanted to say like a lot of people, they feel like when it comes to the term cyber psychology, they think about cyber addiction and they feel it is restricted to cyber addiction itself.
It’s not so cyber. Cyber psychology has bigger spectrum than the cyber addiction itself. So right from digital psychology, right from the marketing, consumer psychology, behavioral economics, and the most important thing, which is a national and international concern for everybody is basically the cyber radicalization and cyber terrorism and cyber warfare.
This is the most important thing which we need to understand. So I think there we require a lot of people who understand the geopolitical aspect as well as the psychology and cyber aspects together to make it a country safer, the world to be safer and peaceful, because the war now is not basically one-to-one, the drone war and the robotic war and the cyber war is coming up now. So it’s very difficult now in coming days, in the next generation, Gen Z and beta generation, they are going to see a very challenging things when it comes to the climate as well as to the internet, because any time it’s going to get collapsed.
So India, basically it is the cyber crime is going up more than around 300% and millions of millions daily swapping of money is going on. It’s getting swiped off. So and the detection is also very less, less than 1%.
Conviction is less than 1%. So we need a lot of professionals now. Eight lakhs professionals are required in India for cyber security.
Consider about the world. It’s a scope there basically when it comes to the employability part. A lot of people can get employed.
But when it comes to national security, because that makes the world peaceful. And so I have one student now, she is from Syria and she’s doing a cyber psychology course. She’s telling about how she’s a Brazilian basically and she is staying in Syria.
So she’s telling how they are suffering there. It’s so disturbing listening to things like what’s happening there. But we are not aware because whatever has been shown to us, we see only that part.
The same may happen to the children also. I think now it’s all about narratives. It’s all about the storytelling.
Whose stories and whose narratives are better than manipulative. So there the cyber psychological aspects can be used and the new generation, those who are not able to find the credibility of any news, fake news and other things, the deep fake AI and other parts. So if they are trained about this thing in schools, colleges, or even as a professional, I think we can have a new peaceful world under the cyber psychological aspect.
Yeah, I agree. And it is, I think the biggest challenge is human resource. Is just to get people who are passionate about this and get them trained up as soon as possible.
We really need resource all over the world. All over the world. Yeah.
And it sounds a bit shallow to ask you a really silly question about which book you’d most recommend to anyone in cyber psychology. It’s just because all the stuff you’re doing is so amazing. And now I’m asking you which book you’d recommend.
Seems very shallow question. We have all the common answers. We all know that we have all been following Mary and the cyber effect book and all these books written by Mary is awesome.
That’s the basically the holy book of cyber psychology. We can say initially the start of cyber psychology. So that’s a big for the bigness.
It’s good. I’ve also authored one of my book called wired for wellness been published by the Adroid publishers and we have unveiled it in Japan last year. So that is for the parents, teachers, and students to understand the basics of cyber psychology.
So right from the evolution of cyber psychology, the generation, the chemical responsible case studies, and brain and mind, how it works online. That is about that book in a very simple language. So, but I will recommend anybody who wants to start, should start with Mary Eakin’s book so they can have a love for cyber psychology.
Yeah. That was the very first book I ever read on cyber psychology and I was absolutely hooked from page one and it just, yeah, just gave me such a passion for the subject. So yeah, highly recommended.
Thank you so much for all your time and for giving us some insight into what you’re doing in India. It just sounds like you are completely exhausted with all the things that you’re doing, but still have so much energy and passion for spreading the word and getting people on board and getting them, building up the knowledge of what cyber psychology is to help every single person, every single generation. So thank you for all that you do in India for the field.
I just thank you also for inviting me and so that my voice can reach to the other side of the world. And this is a constructive side of cyber psychology, like we are doing it online. So this is the positive part of that thing.
Both points up both the sides. And with your appreciation words, I’m really encouraged. And these words makes me more energetic to work more hard and to make it more applicable and bringing us a social impact.
And that’s the reason I’m trying to connect all the dots from the world and inviting them, all of them to India and see how we are working here and how we can bring an impact. Same like the yoga, which is now running completely all over the world. Same thing we wanted to come up with India also.
Brilliant. So thank you so much for all your time and for joining us on Confessions of a Cyber Psychologist. Really looking forward to getting updates of all the things you’re going to be doing over the next couple of years.
And we’ll be sharing the links to the certificates that you’ve got in India and all the Facebook page and your LinkedIn page and all the other exciting things you’ve been doing and your book. Yeah, sure. I’ll be sending you the book also.
Yeah, that would be brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
Thank you.
