The Use of the Internet Environment for Enhancing Creativity

The similarity between the features of the Internet and those characterizing creative individuals encouraged us to look for a theory that explicates and justifies the use of the Internet environment for enhancing creativity. The analysis of questionnaires and interviews of students and teachers of arts yielded ten fundamental hypotheses, the 'Decalogue', which can serve as a basis for the needed theory. The four most significant hypotheses - namely, cooperation versus individuality, exposure to creative people, flexibility, and multiculturalism - and their inter-relations are discussed extensively in this paper. This discussion yields a primary paradigm that can be elaborated to encompass the enhancing of creativity in a wide variety of artistic, scientific, and technological disciplines.