Nicholas Harris
Lei Gu
Josh Myers
The thrust of this book is that people subconciously identify new media devices (TV's, computers, etc.) as intelligent beings, or social players. The authors, Reeves and Nass, discuss various psychological norms, apply them to media devices (often computers), and then test their hypothesis using unsuspecting volunteers.
They discovered through their experiences certain rules about media human interaction such as: people will be polite to a computer, a television can invade a person's personal space, and that arousing material on screen will elicit arousal and better memory of the material later.
I have to admit, I agree with these assertions. I know from experience that intense movies, games, and astros baseball on FSN get my blood pumping. I duck if I see something on screen out of the corner of my eye. I'll stand to cheer a touchdown. I'll also yell at the TV when the astros leave the bases loaded for the fourth time in the game. However, I don't think that this behavious is anything to be surprised by. The whole purpose of movies and TV shows is to provide a distraction: the good ones allow us to engross ourselves in their world. This idea has been around millenia. Any good story is going to engage and arouse us.
I am less certain about their conclusion that people are polite to computers. I feel pretty sure that my behaviour towards my computer is not one of politeness. I would hate it if it asked me if we could work together as a team. I really hate it when it asks me 2 or 3 times if I want to run a program that I have selected with a double click of the mouse (I do have vista, which I do like for the most part). I wouldn't be surprised if some people are polite to their computers. I imagine that the young and old and others would do not have much experience with computers may tend to be polite.
I believe that the key to a well designed program is not how polite it is to the user, or how likeable its personality is, or if it invades the user's personal space, or if it speaks in a male or female voice. I believe that the key to a well designed program is how intuitive its interface is. I personally believe in buttons, combo boxes, tabs, and prompts.
I'll admit I don't want a voice shouting at me to input data, however, I would rather the computer tell me:
"Enter a number (1-20): "
Than a computer that prompted me:
"I like playing games with people, I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 20, I wonder if you can guess what it is... "
I personally had a period of about a year where I would get really into movies around the time Ocean's twelve came out. I remember walking out of that movie and feeling stealthy like I was one of the main characters.
ReplyDeleteHeh, I guess the reaction to the not-so-helpful help commands could be seen as a media equation too. Irritability didn't decrease with the fact that you're interacting with a machine rather than a real person, infact, I'd almost go as far to say that the user will be more irritable than if facing another person.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a good point about bringing up being engrossed in a good story (a story can include a sports event). The story is what the human mind is being told to believe not the media that is helping to tell the story. So one should not really count movies and tv shows when trying to make the point that media = real life because its really the story that is doing the convincing not the media device. The media device is just a tool to help tell the story.
ReplyDeleteI have found myself more involved with a movie than I should be at times as well. It is only a movie, it's not real, but that doesn't mean you don't get involved. My favorite are the IMax movies where the screen takes up almost the whole room. At least in a regular movie theater you can still look around and say "its only a movie."
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