The two pilots who overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles, remaining out of communication with air traffic controllers for over an hour, have blamed their silent detour on being distracted by their laptops. Captain Timothy Cheney and First Officer Richard Cole have denied falling asleep, instead explaining that they were reviewing their schedules on their computers.

Whether or not Cheney and Cole were sleepy, this “lost in cyberspace” story is a wake-up call for all of us. The amazing undertow of new technology is indeed powerful enough not only to distract many of us, but to pull us completely off-course in our lives.

The same moving cursor, clicking keys and bright light emanating from Cheney and Cole’s laptops can be hypnotic to millions of Americans, who are disoriented by the lure of their computers and the false comfort of navigation systems. How many traffic accidents on roads, after all, are being caused by people texting while following the voice prompts and LED arrows of their navigation systems.

Not only are we at risk to forget where we are going on the road or in the sky, but we can lose sight of who we are, what our real goals are and what our real emotions are. As Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” The technologies we are deploying in a wholesale way across the nation and across the globe will have dramatic psychological effects we can’t predict.

We’re already seeing people who I believe are more violent online than they would be if they weren’t “projecting” themselves into cyberspace. Cyberbullies gang up mercilessly on school kids they haven’t even met. Young women on YouTube broadcast themselves beating other young women.

I have evaluated more than one client in my own practice who was charged with possession of child pornography who I doubt would ever have accessed inappropriate images were he not removed from his sense of self and his core identity by the infinitely depersonalizing distance of a computer keyboard and computer screen. Think about it: If two highly trained pilots can veer 150 miles off course because their laptops suck them into a black hole of inattentiveness, isn’t it possible that computers can lure otherwise good and decent people to very indecent acts?

I believe they can.

I have also counseled couples in which either the wife or the husband engaged in racy, inappropriate behavior online (including e-mails) that I doubt would have ever occurred without the seductive draw of being relatively anonymous, nearly disembodied and technologically “over-powered” by the use of computers and the Internet.

When we consider that much of the world’s military planning and actual weaponry involves the use of depersonalizing technology and computer simulations, we should begin to wonder whether unthinkable acts could be possible (especially by rogue regimes) as people drift off course in more than one way.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement including www.livingthetruth.com. Dr. Ablow can be emailed at info@keithablow.com.

On Monday, June 16, 49-year-old Lori Drew pled not guilty in Federal Court to one count of conspiracy and three counts of using a computer to inflict emotional distress (violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act).

Drew, of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., is accused of creating a phony MySpace account, which convinced her teenaged neighbor Megan Meier that a boy named Josh Evans (who never existed) had fallen in love with her, then suddenly came to despise her. In one message, “Evans” wrote Meier that the world would be better off without her. Brokenhearted, Meier hanged herself.

I met Megan’s mother Tina, a courageous woman who has become a national crusader against cyberbullying.

There is more at stake here, however, even than that noble goal. The Lori Drew case is another wake-up call that proves how our genuine and exquisite human emotions and vulnerabilities can be tapped and twisted by technologies like the Internet, which can “infect” us with toxic fictions that cause real-life injuries, even death.

This is a time when millions of Americans are using social networks to “connect” with one another without really knowing whether the “individuals” on the other side of those connections are speaking the truth and divulging real insights about themselves, or manufacturing “profiles” in order to manipulate and, ultimately, inflict harm on them. We are attaching ourselves to sometimes-contrived life stories that may have no roots in reality, thereby putting vulnerable individuals at the mercy of cyber-imposters who can emotionally assault from an infinite distance.

Too many of us are primed for these toxic and fictional relationships because the Web encourages them. The business plan of the reprehensible Second Life, for example, is to offer people the opportunity to live alternate existences unfettered by the real facts of their lives. 

Webkinz offers children the chance to care for cyberpets that are not real, yet attempt to elicit real emotional connections—like concern for whether the animals are having fun and enjoying their little, animated rooms. This bending of reality is not without consequences. One consequence is that we lose our ability to separate reality from fantasy and become permeable to interpersonal, Internet fraud.

This isn’t the fault of MySpace. It is a byproduct of the times and technology and of less socially responsible sites like the ones I have mentioned above.

One way (I hope) people can fight back, is by participating in communities that put truth-telling front and center as a goal. I’ve created one called Living the Truth. Although that network isn’t immune to manipulators, it is filled with thousands of members dedicated to honesty, and therefore, I hope it will be more likely to filter out imposters.

Here’s the best antidote, especially for our young people: We must tell them that nothing they experience in cyberspace is as trustworthy as what they see with their own eyes, can touch with their own hands and can feel with their own hearts. We must encourage them to speak openly with us—their parents—and with their siblings and their close friends about their true feelings. We should remind them, always, of the wisdom of the body, the value of physical fitness and of inhaling the real air available only in Nature, not on the Web. We should reaffirm our connection to other real, living beings, like our pets and the endangered species we seek to protect from harm.

The Internet can disconnect us from ourselves and make us vulnerable to others who are using wireless technology to float free of the responsibility for their very real anger and violence. We need to close some of the space that now separates us from one another and from reality. We can’t forget to join hands as we join social networks.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com.