The Media Equation is a discussion on the lengths to which humans perceive the mediated as the real. Humans have been found to treat all media, from books and films to computers, like people to a certain extent. Even though it is a mediated view, the experience is subconsciously treated the same as if it were real.
I have already discussed what bothered me about this book so I will skip immediately to what I found interesting and useful, namely the latter half of the book.
Source Orientation
I feel that the discussion of source orientation is key to understanding the results of the research mentioned earlier in the book. It pokes holes in the concept that people think of the programmer when using a program, a concept which I had considered an explanation for why people are polite to computers. After reading the section it makes sense that this would not be the case. In fact I would say there are several different hierarchies of source orientation.
Nass and Reeves suggest that people are thinking of the computer when they are interacting with its software. That may have been true of their test examples where there might have only been on type of software on the computer. However, from my experience I would have to say that there are several conceptual source levels between what I am doing on a computer and the actual physical computer itself. Just as is the case in their examples, I notice this when something goes wrong.
First I blame the piece of software I am using right now. That is the entity I am interacting with, not any other software, not the operating system, not the computer. Each application I use has its own quirks, its own personality, I am interacting with them. For example, if you have ever heard someone say "I hate Microsoft Word!" after something messes up. They don't blame the computer, they don't blame the operating system, they blame the application itself.
Now this may be a function of the level of technical sophistication of the user. It could be that if one were less experienced with computers that the computer would take the blame of any software failing, or perhaps instead of the computer, the operating system. I suppose its all in how you perceive the relationship between application, operating system and hardware. You are not interacting with your computer, the physical device, it is much more layered and nuanced than that.
Other Thoughts
There were a few other sections that piqued my interest. One was the section on gender assumptions from voices out of computers. That was all very well, but I wonder how much more information and assumptions they could get from analyzing different accents of male and female voices. They listed a whole host of assumptions (er conclusions) made about the nature of the speaker based on their gender, but what about their accent? If for example we changed the comparison to being between a female British accent versus a male Californian accent. I think that could be just as enlightening (I am pretty sure the British accent would increase perceived intelligence)
I had a quick thought on screen sizes which I am surprised they did not actually do any formal studies on. Namely, is a computer (perceived to be) faster and more capable if it has a larger screen. I can tell you from experience that it is absolutely faster, no question. Next time your computer is bogged down, get a new screen, it will make you feel so much better about your computer.
Finally I found the section on fidelity interesting, and I feel that they could now expand it from just being about visual and audio fidelity to include tactile fidelity. For example on touch screens, to what extent does a lag between finder motion and computer reaction mess with people.
