It's a great pleasure that the publication sub-committee of the Indian Psychiatric Society has come out with this book, Cyberpsychiatry. The Internet and cyberspace have exploded over the past two and a half decades, with millions of sites and platforms catering to all needs and tastes. Any new technology comes with its own pros and cons. And perhaps no technology developed so far matches the Internet in the breadth and intensity of the psychosocial effects it has on its users. Such effects are both desirable and undesirable. And it is largely with respect to the latter that psychiatry steps in.

Times change and with changing times new realities emerge. Cyberspace is a new reality, which veritably is man's own creation. This is a new virtual space, in addition and distinct from our very own mind which we are all endowed with through the process of evolution. Emergence of human mind is a quantum evolutionary jump which has enabled countless cognitive revolutions, including innovations, inventions and also creation of myriads of myths. Cyberspace and psychic space routinely interact to give us an enriching experience which is unique to modern millennium. The lure and attraction of cyberspace is embedded with possibilities of immense potentials as well as problems. In all system of orders, there inevitably is a residual trail of disorders. Cyberpsychiatry aims to tend to the disorders emerging at the interface of cyberspace and psychic space. Cyberpsychiatry is a new bloom of the academic disciplines, which deserves to be welcomed with a very warm and big applause. Indian Psychiatric Society has taken a lead in this direction.

Times change. Societies undergo transformation. Old laws are discarded. Rituals evolve and dissipate. Utensils of daily living acquire new shapes. Science advances, fresh discoveries are made, and practice of medicine begins to reflect such changes. Countries alter their territorial maps and cities acquire new names. Languages die. New forms of poetry and music emerge. Attires and recipes become obsolete. In essence, nothing remains the same forever. The great Urdu poet, Mirza Ghalib (1780–1869) was correct when he declared that Sabaat ek taghayyur ko hai zamaane mein (translation: “the only thing stable is change”). But the resignation implicit in such astuteness overlooks that man's need for connectedness, for attachment, for discourse with others, and for love survives all changes. It is unsurmountable. Being inherently a physically vulnerable and weak, if cognitively advanced, species, human beings need group affiliation, clamor for attention, and lose sanity if exposed to long-term social isolation.

In the past millennium, if we think of the epochs which have been characterized by huge changes in knowledge, technology and society, the first that comes to the mind was the era of enlightenment (CE 1650–1800), dotted by luminaries in the field of science and humanities. The “Internet era”, beginning in the 1990s, is the second one. Tim Berners Lee, the eminent British computer scientist, with his invention of the Internet in 1991, led to a global explosion of activity in the cyberspace. And the world has changed forever! Over the past three decades, our lives are increasingly dominated by the cyberspace, and the varied possibilities, both good and bad, if offers. Activities in cyberspace have become a preoccupation of at least half of the world's population of seven billion—helping us in numerous ways, but unfortunately being a cause for much worry too. A premature exposure of very young children and infants to screen, a wide variety of screen addictions across all age groups, and misuse of the screen for maladaptive activities like cyberbullying, cyberstalking, webcam sex tourism, use of the dark web, etc., have become an order of the day for many. The uses (read misuses) that the screen lures people into, have become a major cause for concern for sociologists, mental health professionals and society at large. Cyberpsychiatry, as the term suggests, is the study of our relationship to technology and the way it affects our mental health in a myriad ways. (The term is often used as a synonym for online therapy or telepsychiatry, but that is a very restricted use of the term.)

The book in your hands today would not have seen the light of the day, had not the immediate Past President of the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS), Dr Mrugesh Vaishnav, and the then Honorary Secretary of the IPS, Dr Vinay Kumar, agreed to my proposal to bring forth such a volume.