I think it’s important to look at human behavior and human interaction with media from a broad perspective. Findings from biology, neuroscience, and evolution can challenge us to rethink traditional theoretical heuristics from psychology (and elsewhere) that inform our judgments about everything from media use and development to assessing media experience. Adriaan called my attention to this provocative blog entry (Why we laugh together and can't get enough of TV) about the role of narrative in a social context to teach individuals the accepted beliefs and behaviors within an individual’s cultural context. In essence, monitoring the responses of others in your social group “calibrates” your behavior to that of the group. Adriaan argues that the human social brain is tricked by television, and driven to watch programs--often by ourselves--by our social brain, but without the social feedback. Thus it becomes wasted time. I absolutely agree with the use of narrative as a … [Read more...]
July 4th in Second Life
I hadn’t been in Second Life for several months. But I was invited by a friend to visit his class on Social Media Marketing and talk about the psychology of website design (I’ll post the talk when I get it cleaned up--we had some technical issues), so I was forced to go out and go shopping because my avatar had absolutely nothing to wear. Gosh, I was still in my "newbie skin." (The uncustomized, out-of-the-box avatar look is a marker of a newbie.) It’s amazing how brave I am when I’m shopping. So with this new found bravery, I thought it would be fun to go exploring and see if there were any fireworks displays. The thing that always impresses me in Second Life is the amount of creativity and skill displayed by the range of resident-generated content. Heady psychological issues like social connection in new media and identity aside, I was struck by the idea of Second Life as a continual participatory art piece. People are spending huge amounts of energy creating … [Read more...]
Is Amazon’s Kindle the Solution to my FedEx bill?
Okay, I have to admit I am a gadget-freak. My husband continually gives me grief because I can justify any technology purchase by saying “but I’m a Media Psychologist. I HAVE to know PERSONALLY how it feels to use these things.” So, right after I got the Wii and the iPod touch, I decided I should investigate Amazon’s Kindle. Two things, or maybe three, pushed me over the edge. First, Amazon lowered the price. I may be a world-class rationalizer, but I am not insensitive to price points. Second, a friend showed me his, demonstrating the feature that allows you to increase the type size so you can read it on a treadmill. This allowed me to rationalize that it would encourage me to exercise. I thought that was a particularly good one. Third, every time I travel from Boston, our world headquarters, to the west coast, where I escape every time I find the weather challenging on the east coast (i.e. a lot!), I end up FedEx-ing the pile of articles that I am using in whatever … [Read more...]
