Pen measuring emotions

According to NewScientist, the company Philips is launching a pen measuring heart rate, skin conductance, finger pressure and temperature in order to get an idea of the current state of mind of the author. I'd love to write a book about that pen, preferably a detective novel. And I'd love to see the SCL curves of Ms Rowling when finishing the Harry Potter series.

A YouTube for thinkers

Do you feel like YouTube clips mostly resemble silly sitcom copycats with little substance, that only occasionally succeed in providing semi-funny haha moments? Longing for depth and intellectual snack? There's an alternative now, a YouTube for big thinkers, grand ideas and genuine, thorough discussion. It's called Big Think, read more on the story behind it here.

The tale of the well-being

D Kahneman (a psychologist awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences six years ago) tells a tale of being wrong in the research of well-being.

"Measuring experienced happiness turned out to be interesting and useful, but not in the way we had expected. We had simply been wrong. Experienced happiness, we learned, depends mainly on personality and on the hedonic value of the activities to which people allocate their time."

Societal thoughts

Two pence worth of thoughts, i.e. things I feel worthy of contemplation.

1. In December last year, I predicted a future Western society where values and thoughts, instead of money and gadgets, rule. I still believe in this vision and I'm wondering when this transition will be completed. When will the zeitgeist equal thoughts and values, not things and gadgets, and focus on the process, not the final product? And when we're there, how do you show off to others? Say today, you can flash with a designer bag worth of 5 000 euros. Not everyone, but significantly many, admires that item. But in a world where thoughts, ideas and visions make the currency, how do you show off to friends and colleagues? The contemporary Finn may buy an even better, more powerful SUV to outdo the neighbor, but that won't do the trick tomorrow. Probably, clothing will still play an important role, signaling what you stand for and in what intellectual hemisphere you currently roam.
2. Will categorization according to gender ever disappear? I mean, will we ever primarily consider the human, and the gender as a secondary aspect? It's seems hard to stop labeling people and raise expectations on others depending on their gender.
   
3. Will micro issues surrender to macro ones when debating politics, visions and suggestions? It seems today, when important and relevant issues are being discussed, the focus lies on details and is not often shifted to the bigger picture, to a macro level.
   
4. How many have considered who, if anyone, has something to gain on the climate debate currently raging? Is the question of who may have an interest in instigating such a debate, and why, and are these reasons of such a kind that we want to support them or not, raised at coffee breaks at work places around the world? I wish it was raised and genuinely analyzed. I hope I'm not falling into a conspiracy trap here but I believe it's sensible to ponder why we are debating current issues and who benefits from it.
   

Notes from EuroITV 07 part one

Astrid Weiss of University of Salzburg, the host city of next year’s event, presented findings on how the TV audience perceives their living rooms. It plays a role of a recreational area yet at the same time as a place for socializing. She quoted a woman saying she wants to watch TV in her living room, read and be lazy but the same room is where her son plays PS. A truly multi functional space, it appears. I’ve always been fascinated by how people act, when they have friends over; do they kill the tv or do they actually turn it on, as a background noise or perhaps as an aid or instigator to get the discourse going. But now, when I'm in the middle of a moving process where the function and roles of new rooms are designed, I started reflecting on how I perceive my living room and the role of TV. I chose to have a different room for media. It’s quite small, with a blood red wall, Kill Bill motives painted on the walls and b/w curtains. It’s a place for playing WoW and watching movies. In the living room on the other hand, the only media will be piano music and talk. I see that primarily as a place for socializing and resting. Interestingly, many seem to combine these two, but I’m not comfortable with that solution (anymore I should add).

I have a thing for jewelry, especially rings, but it’s definitely not precious metals and stones that set me off, neither do “bling bling”. Anyways, in Amsterdam I wore one of my favorites I got in London, a black ring by a Japanese designer, made of sponge. Suddenly I overhear a participant commenting it to my colleague: “Susanne is wearing a very special ring. Is it very common to be that different in Finland?” I started laughing, and contrary to the question raiser’s fears, I wasn’t offended at all. Quite the opposite really, I don’t mind wandering off the beaten tracks at times. That doesn’t however mean I don’t possess a sense of community, a desire to belong to a Gemeinschaft. This division between individualization and community characterized many of the presentations and issues raised, in my view, during the conference. That is, especially these days, many long for expressing themselves in a highly individual way whereas the need for belonging to a group and being part of a community of own choice is very important as well. Many TV viewers want to enjoy the social experience that TV consumption is, via watching shows or programs with family and friends, and discuss the shows the next morning over coffee with colleagues at work but highly personalized, niched content is also appealing to them. This is evident even in a concrete and physical manner, at times you watch the news in the living room with your family, at other times you watch them in bed upstairs in your own room on your own TV-set or via mobile TV. So how do you combine the desire for expression of individuality and the desire for belonging to a community? (If you find the recipe, you’re likely to do good. I think the popularity of services such as Flickr lies in the fact that it combines these two factors.) And is the need for belonging to the group (who watched the Eurovision for instance and thus can discuss whether the right song won, the clothes of the artists etc) transforming? This is what comes to my mind when reading the long tail theory, which I largely agree on. According to it, small (as opposed to hit products and mega markets with more, bigger, better) is beautiful and even profitable, the future is all about giving the consumers the choice to choose what they want, when they want it, and niche content will be prevailing. But doesn’t this imply that colleagues around the coffee table have each seen different Sunday night movies, instead of earlier when many watched the 9 o’clock movie on Channel X? There’s no sense of belonging to a group when every colleague watches different, personalized content. The question is, does it matter? Will people be satisfied with the fact that the group they belong to (say those who watched the Eurovision) is likely to be scattered around the world, instead of geographically close, as friends’ and colleagues’ TV guide may look completely different? Will the habit of chatting about last night’s 9 o’clock TV series or movie at work slowly disappear? Qui vivra verra (He who lives, shall see).

Photos from the conference here.

Attributions to bad driving

Lately, I've had a hang-up about appearance and constructions of social reality. I've reflected on how, and why, we choose to convey who we are and how others interpret the message and ultimately understand us. Today, I learned something in relation to this, namely that I tend to make external attributions. I'm digging into Rhodes's and Hamilton's article "Attribution and Entertainment: It's Not Who Dunnit, It's Why" (in Vorderer's and Bryant's Psychology of Entertainment) where the reader is provided an explanation of the attribution theory: it's the prediction of whether an observer will attribute an actor's behavior to internal or external causes.

Think about the last time you were driving, and another driver cut you off.

the writers ask rhetorically. Peace of cake, that happened today, on lunch hour. So they continue:

Did you explain the breach of driving etiquette by focusing on the situation characteristics such as that the driver must be in a hurry, or having a bad day? Typically not. Under those circumstances, most Americans would make disparaging remarks about the driver's bad character, that is, they would make an internal attribution.

Interestingly, I did make a situational attribution as I suggested to my angry passenger that she, the driver cutting me off, probably was late for a meeting or had stretched her 30 minutes lunch break a bit too much, transforming the shortening of the Friday working hours an illusion yet again. I did not look for causes in her personality or character. But I'm wondering if that has anything to do with her being a woman. If it would have been a male driver, I suspect I'd be more prone to look for causes in a bad character.

Papers to the EuroITV conference

We just added the papers we'll present during the EuroITV event in Amsterdam to our research website. The work in progress paper titled "Different” and “exciting”. The impact of set-top box and mobile phone interactivity on TV viewing experiences is available for downloading (pdf), as is the Doctoral Concortium paper Decoding experiencing entertainment in iTV. Oh well, inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes.

Dating

I feel like a polar bear squinting against the sun after months of hibernation. Or in my case, weeks. I've been busy with a client's audience research and yesterday, after days of collecting data and analyzing it, the conclusions were finalized and the report was handed over. In such projects, I do nothing but devote my time to that, I don't check my calender to see what's up next month or follow up on interesting links I get. I'm "live by the hour" and "carpe diem" personalized. But now, when there's time for dating, that is to cruise around in the digital calender, I notice there's a lot of interesting things going on.

• The conference on Media Literacy, in which I participate with a poster, is taking place here at my university in two days. There's a blog too for posting ideas and sharing experiences during the conference, which is a great idea! I wish there were more digital meeting spaces around events taking place off-line.
  

• The date of the conference that my colleagues are organizing, Eyes on iTV, is also hurdling towards us. Registration is still open.

• I'm off to Amsterdam in two weeks, for the EuroITV conference. Makes me kind of wonder, where was I during the spring? It feels like it's 2 months or so away. I guess I need to start preparing for it.
  

• The deadline for submitting abstracts to the Virtual conference is 15th of May. More here.

• And regrettably, my loan of the excellent but yet half unread book Psychology of Entertainment is way too soon due. Which, by the way, is an excellent excuse to occupy the cozy sofa in our lab :)
  

WoW and flow

One of the most popular search words referring to my blog is MMORPG addiction or WoW addiction as I blogged this matter once. It seems that the issue engages, or worries perhaps, many, as for some, playing the game is affecting work, spare time, spending time with friends etc in a negative manner. I can certainly understand the popularity of the game as WoW is highly engaging for players on all levels, for both the noob as well as the the lvl 70 gamer, for the casual player and the hard core player. I’ve praised my restless character many times as it’s unlikely that I dwell on things, or get hooked on one single thing. My WoW-playing is more of the character that when I play, I do it fully and whole heartedly but quite rarely. As soon as I get a little bit tired, I quit. I forget about the game for weeks and when people ask me what level I’m at, I can’t remember. That said, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the game, I do. And it occupies my mind at times as I find myself thinking, “I should log on to see if my items were sold at the auction”, and I sometimes refer to items in the game when talking with friends. The game’s got me good but not hopelessly, in my opinion at least. To me, it’s pure entertainment.

On my desk at work, I have two books of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the issue of flow. I’ve read his theory on what happens when we’re engaged in things we love to do and I’ve applied it on interactivity in media and on iTV but one could also of course apply it to video games.

In short, Csikszentmihalyi argues that we’re the most happy when we’re completely immersed in something we love to do. When this occurs, we’re in a Zen like state of mind, “in flow”. When we find ourselves in that state of mind, we can lose track of time, may forget to eat and probably wouldn’t notice at all if a lion roared behind our back. The flow state is full of enjoyment, fulfillment and pleasure and naturally, it’s a state of mind that most people wish to be in quite often. According to Csikszentmihalyi, a couple of prerequisites must be met in order to this flow state to occur. For instance, there must be clear goals. There must be a challenge but one that relates to the level of skill. It’s like playing a set of badminton with an opponent much better or much less skilled than you, it’s simply not fun nor rewarding. There must be immediate feedback and the actor must have a sense of control.

Now, with WoW, all these requirements are met, in my view. There are two clear goals, the conflict between the Horde and the Alliance, and the goal of reaching lvl 70 and the “end game” (or leveling in general as then, the character is more powerful, gets better gear and stronger aids, and for some reason, humans always strive towards “better”, “higher”, “more”). There’s always something to work towards, depending on your moods. For example, you can develop your character and hunt for better equipment, weapons and gaining experience by completing quests. Or if you’re not up for loads of action, you can sit by the river fishing as that improves the skills of your character and ultimately, helps you reach the goal. The sense of control is great as there’s little that you must do. It’s up to you what quests you do, which skills you have, and what regions you play in. This is one of the big hooks of WoW in my opinion as since you can make what you want of the game, that is you’re designing your own gameplay experience, it’s likely to appeal to you in a great way. If you want a game where you can socialize with your friends or other players a lot and just occasionally go on missions, look no further! If you’re mostly interested in developing your character, feel free to do so. If you’re looking for taking part of an epic story much like a movie, you certainly can do that as well. There are huge challenges for those who look for that, like the raids or instances or trying out quests that are “aimed” at characters at much higher levels. Of course, you can choose easier challenges as well, although the reward of leveling might take a while then.

As the requirements for a flow state are met by the design and structure of the game, I’m not surprised that many find WoW a highly rewarding and entertaining game to which they devote a lot of time and energy. The trick is to keep the playing time at moderate levels.

My personality has been unveiled

I've never taken a personality test in my entire life, apart from the ones of a more entertaining character like "which of the girls in Sex and the City do you resemble the most?" (turned out to be Miranda btw). And I rarely browse around, or surf around, on the internet. I actually installed the Stumble Upon-feature of Firefox to get me started but I've used it once. I always know what kind of information or source I'm looking for. This morning though, when reading the usual dozen of online magazines, I read a column where the journalist listed cool self tests, where you may find out if you're a leader, a complete idiot or if you stand a chance to make it to heaven or not. Boldly, and admittedly full of excitement, I took the "What your boss wants to know about you - your personality traits". Evidently, it's a test based on Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs typological approach to personality.

Having answered 2 of the 72 questions, I started thinking about how I could make better formulated statements myself. Like this one "You are almost never late for your appointments". How much does the negation affect your choice of answer, "yes" or "no"? And is your notion of "almost never" equal to mine? Or this one, "It is easy for you to communicate in social situations", how many would seriously answer no to this positively formed statement? It takes a great deal of courage to say No, actually, it is not easy for me to communicate in social situations.

Well, I figured there's not much I could do about the formulations so I filled it out and got the results. Et voilà, I'm a INTJ rational mastermind, a personality type that about 1 % of the world's population belongs to. In short, such a person is considered to be an enigma, of some even weird. They are self confident, of some considered even arrogant, they know what they want, they have a huge passion for knowing how thinks work and acquiring more knowledge on the world. In short, they are analytical, process driven, idea loving individuals that try to make sense of the world and of other people. When reading the results, I laughed so hard I nearly tipped over my cup of coffee. Some assertions were so right to the point! One example is the desire to constantly gain more knowledge. I'm currently reading, at the same time, 8 books. I'm reading loads of online magazines and newspapers every single day. Take that possibility away from me and I get restless like the wind. And what I just did when filling out the questionnaire, that is tried to improve the questions and hunted for signs of low validation and cheap tricks to make the results as general and widely applicable as possible, is a characteristic for INTJ persons. Lol!

What strikes me though is that the results were not as generally crafted as horoscopes and astrology models tend to be (like "You generally want to do good". Honestly, who doesn't?!) but rather detailed and to the point. Other things again were rather loosely defined. I don't fully buy into the type I was labeled with though. A lot of it is applicable to me but certainly not everything. But it sure was a good deal of fun to read through the suggested character and to recognize oneself at times.

I doubled my foot size

I made a sad discovery yesterday. I attended a class on ecological footprints and I decided to measure my own remains. Turned out to be 6.6 global hectares and compared to my last measure, which I did 2,5 years ago, it has doubled! Lately, when reading and hearing about how frustrated and stressed some feel regarding the climate change and what to do to prevent it, I’ve suspected that the real issue has been a slight exaggeration. Not so anymore. My body actually feels stressed and I feel upset that this score (it is exactly that, a score among many, but one of the better measurements of how one’s consumption influences the Earth) of mine actually doubled although I’ve tried to live in a sustainable and ecologic way.

So I started troubleshooting, that is looking for the reasons to this increase and I found two: the use of cars and flying, two things that are not merely comfort issues but necessities. I have to travel in my work in order to attend events and to conduct audience research. I guess I don’t have to fly to Amsterdam in May, but driving or taking the train means less hours at work. Lately though, I’ve wondered what it would be like to arrange conferences and meetings say in Second Life. I know students who have their classes in SL are generally satisfied and happy with it (it was tested at Åbo Akademi last semester), could it be a model for work meetings as well? Being a sociologist, I’m kinda skeptical. And as for the use of car, it’s frustrating that it’s out of my control. I’d love to have the bus as my primary transportation vehicle, like I did for 7 years when studying, but it’s hard with the current bus routes in the countryside (on Saturdays, they’re leaving once an hour to town, the last one way too early at 17:30, and on Sundays, nada, zip, rien.). I could always approach the local politicians and/or the bus companies but oh well, it’s easier not to make a fuss and jump in the car. Sadly enough.

Cultural WoW

I noticed that Jill Walker has a chapter (perhaps several?) on WoW in a new book on role-playing and games. I should get my hands on that publication although I'm quite text stressed now. Too much interesting to read in too little time. (I'm struck by another fatigue as well, the "No! Not another season-fatigue! I want my favorite TV-series to tell their story in only a few seasons. It's naive, I know, and I foolishly believed that the enigma of Life on Mars would be solved in 8 episodes. Stupid me! I was not thrilled when I found out I "had to" follow another season of it.)

She also blogs on the multitude of references to culture, music and other media in WoW. For example, you can buy a Hanzo sword for your character and if you're familiar with the Kill Bill movies, you'll recognize the item. It's a great surprise when accepting a quest with references to Bob Dylan for instance. It's an Easter Egg, making you smile. Speaking of items, I did the Deadmines with my Draenei character last Sunday and there, I got myself a truly dreadful weapon... a rolling pin! Watch out!

Accepted papers and conference site launch

Lots of academia in the pipeline now. I got my papers accepted for two conferences, the CMID07 in Hemavan, Sweden, concerning crossmedia interaction design and EuroITV in Amsterdam in May. Hurray! I'm so looking forward to indulging myself in passionate, scientific discourse and chilly, snowy slopes!

At the same time, the preparations for our own conference Eyes on iTV has taken off big time now, as it's due to take place in late May here in Vasa. I started drawing on the logo for it last week and finally, today, the new, improved site launched. During the conference, we're putting together an academic ensemble, where researchers can present and discuss iTV related issues. There'll be no publications, pre-submissions of paper propositions or the like. Instead, the outcome will be a meeting between media scholars and media practitioners. I'm fond of this form of encounters, where experts share their insights and case studies with an audience for say 20-30 minutes followed by an open discussion with the audience. The ones I've attended have provided with loads of knowledge and few yawns, I hope ours will do the same. The submission tool for abstracts for proposed presentations will be up in a few days.

The science of the tingling sensation

Yesterday afternoon, my head hurt, my eyes were sore and there was not one thought worthy of a single moment of attention passing through my system. Luckily, I know what makes me hurtle out of such a coma and back to reality: running. While sweating on a tread mill last night, I localized the deep, pleasant and highly rewarding feeling also known as runner's high. For me, it's like a jellyfish of power mooching about in the center of the abdomen, with tentacles injecting tingling sensations. One had better feed this jellyfish of strength as when it's awake, it makes you feel like you're God almighty crossed with Popeye and Forrest Gump, who ran across the continent. (And yes, it's the same jelly fish arms that arre somehow annoyed when you get a stitch.)

While jogging on, I started pondering whether the runner's high experience is somehow interlinked with my barometer of a good game. According to me, a good computer game is one that makes my stomach tingle. Following the Burning Crusade of WoW, I created a Draenei character (I'm on the Al'Akir server, named Paeonia, so there, now you know to whom you want to address coins of gold) and while learning the secrets of totems, I gained wings and flew off a mountain. And I'll be damned, it actually felt like I was flying myself. The moment my character had no soil under her hoof, a tingling sensation spread in my stomach just as if I was flying myself. This emotion was more temporary and diffuse but nonetheless real and more intense than the runner's high. I'm playing with the idea to wire up some of my friends, or myself, to the skin conductance and pulse electrodes in our lab at work while playing - or flying for that matter - in WoW. There hasn't been all too many studies measuring bodily responses to playing games, although I recently read one where the researchers found a significant effect of conduciveness for pride and joy. That is when the game runs smoothly and you're likely to achieve your goal, emotions like joy and pride are likely to rise. Perhaps it is joy, or pride, I'm feeling as I'm improving my character's skills by flying off the rock, but that's not the whole truth, I suspect.

And speaking of running, why is it that one's strength and stamina improves and lasts longer when someone is running next to you at the exact same pace? Is it an heritage from our 9 months spent in mummy's belly and experiencing the simultaneous beat makes us feel secure and relaxed? I wonder if there's a relation between the heart beats of the child and the mother. Do they beat simultaneously and if the mother's heart beat takes off, does the child's heart pace keep up with her beat? It's funny how I benefit from one rhythmic beat, that is having someone next to me who's heel touches the ground the exact same second mine does while others annoy me. I utterly recent playing the piano with a metrometer accompanying me. I guess I've always regarded the metronome as an intrusion in my creativity, something that limits my freedom to interpret a minuet in my own way. Unfortunately, my piano teacher back in the 1980's didn't agree...

I'm a piece of white chocolate

I attended a seminar on language and media last weekend and opinions were raised regarding the preferences of language style of different generations. The assumption was that elderly people don’t really like reading English words in the news paper, slang or expressions like rofl. About midways in the debate, I started reflecting on which generation dwelling I confess to (I’m born 1978). Am I a Generation X:er (people born 1965-1978)? Or do I belong to the Generation Y (1979-1999) or even the MTV Generation (1974-1985)? At times, I feel like I belong to Generation Y, that is net-savvy folks brought up in an wired world where a natural source of news is the online version of the local newspaper. But then again, I don’t really feel like I match the description (although I was fortunate enough to have a commodore 64 in my room with the splendid game Boulderdash). I feel like I’m a piece of white chocolate, which is referred to as chocolate, but contains neither cocoa beans nor caffeine. It is not real chocolate, close but no cigar, kind of. Shortly, I feel like I’m too old for the net generation category but too young to tick the generation X box. I’m somewhere in between two distinct generations.

So I started listing what stands out for people, born like me in 1978 and teeter-tottering between Generation X and Generation Y. This is a highly non-scientific, statistically non-significant but indeed a subjective identification of a pattern: Many of my friends in my age value friends and family (as opposed to the job), money (ironically enough considering the earlier parenthesis), sharing and connectedness. They tend to think in terms of chains instead of hyper links. They are net-savvy and wired, but still don’t give the possibility of leveling in WoW higher priority than strolling around in the park a beautiful, sunny winter’s day. Right about here, a label for this group of people came to mind: Generation W. The “W” would be ideal, not due to the evolution of www (the web) while we were young and neither due to our life being pretty wired, but because of the typography. The W is basically two V:s in one, which symbolizes a fellowship, a togetherness. Depending on the font used, the first V is mirrored, that is identical but yet different. And because it is mirrored, it’s easy for another letter to take over (like WW). That reflects the sense for justice and thinking in terms of chains. The letter W also, depending on the font, resembles a pot which of course makes one associate to inclusiveness, togetherness.

Excited about my “new” notion, I googled it to see in what contexts it has been used and whether it is a widely used term. Apparently, there’s a tv-series with this name aired in the late 1990’s. But other than that, I did not manage to get a clear picture of what “Generation W” stands for, or who it comprises. According to one source, it’s been applied to persons born in 1980-2000 (the W stands for web perhaps). Another blogger writes about the war generation, in other words kids born or brought up while Bush is in the White house. If any of you readers are familiar with the field of generation research and how the notion of generation w is used, please let me know!

Have your say on three pilots on science

Here’s an interesting interactive project involving the TV audience as content experts. PBS, a public broadcaster in the US, is asking the viewers for help in deciding which of three TV pilots – “Wired Science”, “Science investigators” and “22nd Century” - will become a regular science series on the channel. You can watch the three pilots free of charge at the PBS website and then comment on them. Based on audience research and on the feedback of the viewers, PBS then decides which pilot makes it into a series.