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The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media like Real People and Places (Center for the Study of Language and Information Publication Lecture Notes)

The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media like Real People and Places (Center for the Study of Language and Information Publication Lecture Notes)

by Byron Reeves (Author), Clifford Nass (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 1996

    $6.79

  • New

    Paperback 1998

    $29.02
Synopsis

According to popular wisdom, humans never relate to a computer or a television program in the same way they relate to another human being. Or do they? The psychological and sociological complexities of the relationship could be greater than you think. In an extraordinary revision of received wisdom, Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass demonstrate convincingly in The Media Equation that interactions with computers, television, and new communication technologies are identical to real social relationships and to the navigation of real physical spaces. Using everyday language, the authors explain their novel ideas in a way that will engage general readers with an interest in cutting-edge research at the intersection of psychology, communication and computer technology. The result is an accessible summary of exciting ideas for modern times. As Bill Gates says, '(they) ... have shown us some amazing things'.

$6.79

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 317
 Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 13 Sep 1996
ISBN 10: 157586052X
ISBN 13: 9781575860527

Media Reviews
The best book on this topic... Speech Technology
This is fascinating research, engagingly written, and revealing startling insights. Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future
Maintaining a jargon-free, readable style, the authors share their obvious enjoyment of the humorous situations that often arose during the experiments. Library Journal
A badly-needed antidote against the sterility, impoliteness, and outright hostility of the interaction between people and media. Donald A. Norman, Vice President, Apple Computer
In a series of compelling experiments, Nass and Reeves show how the potentially most powerful educational tool of the future, the computer, elicits the mindlessness of the user. Ellen J. Langer, Professor of Psychology, Harvard
Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves have spent the last decade working in the area of social responses to technology. We brought them into our team, and they have shown us some amazing things. Bill Gates, Founder and CEO, Microsoft Corporation
Reeves and Nass have discovered some fascinating things about how humans react to technology. Their work has implications at many levels--from product design to the design of experiments in social psychology. John Perry, Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University
I've enjoyed reading this fascinating book. Perhaps it is the first real psychology of media...The book will be especially useful and interesting to designers who wish to make a *really* friendly computer (though the authors will explain that friendliness is not always what people want). Sara Kiesler, Professor, Carnegie-Mellon
The results in this clearly written, but scholarly, book are at first humorous and eventually frightening... The Media Equation is a must-read for media professionals and a should-read for anyone with a television set. Its final message is far from cheery: While we're waiting for evolutionary adaptation to catch up, we're all at the mercy of Madison Avenue and Microsoft. James S. Howard, The Fresno Bee
If [Byron and Nass'] results as reported in this startling and well-written book are confirmed by further research, the conclusions have profound implications for anyone who designs or uses computer software or communication media. At long last, social scientists are applying the methods of systematic observation and testing to some of the most troubling questions of the modern era, questions about the kind of people we've become, now that we've created machines that mimic our thoughts and behavior. Howard Rheingold, author of Virtual Community