Media Equation: Full Blog

Reference

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses To Computers

Cliff Nass, Youngme Moon

Journal of Social Issues - 2000

Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?

Cliff Nass, Youngme Moon, BJ Fogg, Byron Reeves, Christ Dryer

CHI 1995

Computers are Social Actors

Cliff Nass, Jonathan Steuer, Ellen Tauber

CHI 1994

Summary

Together these papers summarized the work of Cliff Nass, Byron Reeves and Youngme Moon in extending the social actor role to computers. The papers establish the Media Equation which simply states that Media is equivalent to real life. This theory enables treating computers as a social actor when studying interactions with users. The papers go to significant lengths to describe and counter alternative theories for the behaviors of humans observed in experiments supporting the idea of the Media Equation. The papers also identify the minimum set of attributes required to gain social attribution to a machine.

Discussion

The Media Equation is of high interest to me, as the research group I work in is attempting to extend the equation to human-robot interactions. Because of this, I have had to chance to be on a team with Dr. Cliff Nass and directly hear his ideas and previous experiences. To this point, it seems apparent in our research that the Media Equation does apply to robotics and it is highly noticeable anytime we bring robots to interact with the general public.