The Media Equation

1
The Media Equation

• Reeves and Nass
• Chapter 1
• (http//guir.berkeley.edu/courses/cs198/papers/med
  iaeq.pdf)

2
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?

3
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 Chops
  opinion
• No one laughed
• Treat media as life

4
Who does this?

• Kids
• Why? Because they are young and dont know better
• Novices
• Lack of experience
• Experts
• Easier, efficient
• Everyone!

5
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 isnt reasonable to do so.
• Nass, et. al., started doing research called
  Social Responses to Communication Technologies

6
Research Methodology

• 1. Find some social science research that
  represents a fact about peoples 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

7
This allows

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

8
Conclusions

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