One of the things I’m grateful for is that I have a boss who invests in his people. My intelligent boss always sends us links to read and engages us in analytical discussions.
This January, he lent me a book on human computer interaction learning. His long list of books-to-read makes it necessary to “delegate” the reading to the staff. I don’t mind.
The Man Who Lied to His Laptop
The Man Who Lied to His Laptop
As we move towards a technology and information driven world, we are always in a destructive-creative process whereby we try new softwares, new approaches and new schools of thought that challenge status quo. The past decade our relationships have been aided (and hindered) by technology. Social media sites, facebook, instagram, twitter have given us new channels for communication and gave birth to social cultures (i.e. selfies, memes, etc). Almost everyone has a smart phone, a tablet or a laptop.
Understanding to how people respond to these becomes more important. The Man Who Lied to His Laptop showed that we respond to our computers the same way we respond to people! Making experiments using computers a valid way of understanding human relationships.
Aside from this, the book was more about understanding human relationships than human computer interaction learning. It just used the computers in its experiments to isolate variables.
It was a good read though!
Some interesting things…
On computers: We treat computers like people
- We are biased about “gendered” voices on computers. Male computer voices seem more convincing when talking about hard sciences than female voices (and vice versa for female associated topics such as fashion and emotions)
- We are encouraged by praises from a computer. I remember candy crush’s “Splendid!” and “Sweet!” comments. Maybe that makes it more addicting.
- Reciprocity: like human relationships, when computers give us info about themselves then asks us questions, we also offer more information about ourselves than if the computer didn’t “volunteer” any information.
On human relationships:
- We like and trust people who look and act like us because we think they are more trustworthy
- To influence other people, correctly assess their personalities and “imitate” them.
- Team Work is about identifying yourselves with the group, and a strong sense of interdependence.
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