The Media Equation Reeves and Nass Chapter 1 ( /papers/mediaeq.pdf)

Overview Research into how we humans treat media (movies, games, tv, computers, etc.) Hypothesis: media = life Ex. if this dog said hello, a novice user says hello back. –Is this surprising? –What does this tell us?

Examples Presidential candidate in a debate walks closer to the cameras –Home audience approved Testifying to congress, the owner of a sock puppet was asked if she agreed with Lamb Chop’s opinion –No one laughed Treat media as life

Who does this? Kids –Why? Because they are young and don’t know better Novices –Lack of experience Experts –Easier, efficient Everyone!

Critics Well as long as you think about it, are more experienced, etc. you will not do this. Not true! Why? –Takes effort!!! This effort is surprising! The common thought of media as tools for tasks goes against media = life People respond to media as life, even if they know it isn’t reasonable to do so. Nass, et. al., started doing research called Social Responses to Communication Technologies

Research Methodology 1. Find some social science research that represents a fact about people’s interaction with other people –Ex. People react to approaching people 2. Summarize the rule –Ex. When someone walks closer to you, you pay attention 3. Replace person/environment w/ media 4. Find out how the test –Ex. A real person walks to you 5. Do it w/ media –Ex. A video person walks to you 6. Run it 7. Summarize –Ex. People do respond to video of people walking in

This allows Improving Design of Media Evaluate Media New Methods for Research Big Issues – where does media go from here?

Conclusions Through out human evolution, everything that exhibited any intelligence was life. How can we make use of this?