Thursday, April 14, 2011

Book Reading 48 – Media Equation

Part 1 – Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Summary

This selection dealt with how humans view the computer as more of a social entity than a machine.  Some tests were performed in order to demonstrate this concept.  They showed that humans personify computers with ethnicity and gender, as well as associating aggressiveness to computers.  The most interesting part about this test was how everyone agreed that computers should not be treated as another human being.

Discussion
How often have you heard, seen, or maybe even yourself become infuriated with a computer?  Maybe even pounded on your keyboard out of rampant frustration?  It’s obviously not a good idea since it can needlessly break something, but it is still a natural response when something we are doing makes us angry on a computer.  The computer has nothing to do with it, yet it still gets the brunt of our anger in these situations.


Part 2 – Computers are Social Actors
Summary

It was shown how easily responses from social norms that people apply to computers can be reproduced during their interaction with them.  Studies were done to show the power of primitive cues such as gender and voice when pertaining to computers in the social realm.  The end result showed how largely social the human-computer relationship really is.

Discussion
This might not be the case with everyone, but I view my computer as a major part of who I am.  It’s definitely more than a machine to me.  And truly, a large part of my social interactions take place through the computer with friends.  I have seen a lot of examples of how this selection can be applied as a whole.


Part 3 – Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?
Summary

A study was presented here that showed how people respond socially to a computer appearing to have a personality.  The study involving problem solving with another human being had two main computers with one being dominant and one being submissive.  The dominant computer always went first, used strong language, and expressed higher confidence.  The submissive computer always went second, asked a lot of questions, and had a lower confidence.  The result showed people recognized the personalities of the computers and that they reacted to the personality types as if the computers were another person in an actual social situation.

Discussion
If people pick up on personality and treat computers as people naturally, I would imagine it would be a good idea to cater to this habit.  If program added a little character to their design, this might make new designs more acceptable to new users.  This might not exactly be the case, but it would be an interesting way to design software.  Some computer games I have played have showed character before and it really can add to the experience and enjoyment of use of the product.

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