This book seeks to critically examine the internet we have today and how it affects our relationships with each other. The book opens with a shocking account of an online marriage. It describes how the wedding vows were sent via e-mail and how the bride and groom were located in different cities. The introduction goes on to describe how technology is becoming a type of God. It is a God, nevertheless, in the sense that people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence, that for most people it works in mysterious ways, that they condemn people who speak against it, that they stand in awe of it, and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits, and their relationships to accommodate it.
Chapter one goes into detail talking about the postmodern soul in cyberspace.
Groothuis talks about the problem of assumed identities. In cyberspace you can take on any identity you want with out anyone ever figuring out what your real identity is. The entire postmodernism movement endorses this idea of taking on many identities. Just as postmodernism rejects monotheism as an illegitimate attempt to monopolize the deity, so too it rejects the individual self as an illegitimate attempt to straightjacket psychology. By interacting with different identities in cyberspace we loose all contact with real people and only interact with assumed identities that are usually completely made up.