What is Positive Technology and its impact on CyberPsychology

The goal of this paper is to introduce and describe the “Positive Technology” approach – the scientific and applied approach to the use of technology for improving the quality of our personal experience through its structuring, augmentation and/or replacement – as a way of framing a suitable object of study in the field of cyberpsychology and human-computer interaction. Specifically, we suggest that it is possible to use technology to influence three specific features of our experience – affective quality, engagement/actualization and connectedness – that serve to promote adaptive behaviors and positive functioning. In this framework, positive technologies are classified according to their effects on a specific feature of personal experience. More, for each level we have identified critical variables that can be manipulated to guide the design and development of positive technologies.