Prototype of a Person

Cyberpsychology Thesis on Irish Blogging

At the start of March I seemed pretty intent on beginning an ambitious post graduate research paper on trust formation online. Since then I have done extensive research into the topic and had to narrow down my research area, this is of course due to time/resource constraints (and the discovery of a very similar study published just recently).

Whilst researching trust online, I was quite drawn to all of the research on blogs and weblogs. The deeper I researched it on an international level (looking at American, Japanese and European literature) the more I realised how interesting it was that as a nation we have not embraced it. Especially considering the overwhelming statistics: In 2007 it was estimated that there were between 50 and 85 million blogs and at their current rate of growth, by 2010 there will be over 500 million blogs. Yet, it has been estimated that there are only about 3,000 or 4,000 Irish bloggers, in comparison to the 12 million bloggers in American or the 8 million bloggers in Japan. Even in the IT industry in Ireland, there is a severe lack of business blogging, despite the obvious benefits.

However, recent statistics published by Amárach claims that almost one in five Irish Internet users have started or contributed to a blog in the past year and if you look at the Alexa.com rankings, Blogger.com is the 10th most visited site by Irish Internet Users. Are there thousands more Irish bloggers out there? That are just unconnected to the blogosphere. Research has shown that some blogs are simply more connected to a blogosphere than others, with some not being connected at all. Or are Irish Internet Users bigger readers than writers? Research has shown that people are less likely to pay attention to a medium perceived as not being credible, and according to some reports trust in blogging in on the decrease (in Ireland) yet other reports show that the majority of Irish Internet users trust consumer opinions posted online.

There is a lot of conflicting data out there. So, naturally I’m fascinated.

I’ll be surveying Irish Internet Users (specifically bloggers and blog readers) to investigate their attitudes, perceptions and motivations, and comparing the results to existing international research. In order to interpret these results, I will also be applying existing social psychology, computer mediated communications and human computer interaction literature.

I’ll also be looking into issues of credibility, liability and the business implications (both positive and negative).

Any thoughts?

Describe Yourself in 6 Words

Becs has “tagged” me… so I am required to describe myself in 6 words (either 6 individual words or a 6 word sentence) and then “pass it on” to other people (Liam, Darragh, David - you’ve been tagged!). This is my 6 word sentence:

“Wants to know something about everything.”

Right now I’m loving/hating…

Loving movie-tastic Dublin this week. Heading down to the preview screening of Vexille this evening, all courtesy of the Cinemagic International Film Festival (via Darragh and JazzBiscuit). They’re showing some truly classic movies (like Jaws!) in both Movies @ Dundrum and Cineworld on Parnell Street. Hating that I can’t make it to Toy Story on Wednesday morning. Now that will be a special screening - what a classic! Also heading to the preview screening of Iron Man in Cineworld on Wednesday night courtesy of the newly launched website Movies.ie – it really does pay off to be connected… to the internets of course!

Loving everything that Jason Segal and Tina Fey are in, have been in, and are going to be in. Examples being - Forgetting Sarah Marshall, How I Met Your Mother and Freaks and Geeks from Jason Segal, and then there is Baby Momma, 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live from Tina Fey. I highly recommend 30 Rock if you’re looking for a new comedy to start watching. I’ve become a total video junkie. Hating that neither of those two current TV shows (30 Rock and How I met your…) are ever on terrestrial or digital in Ireland and must be downloaded. Who ever it is that decides what American TV shows to buy in (rubbish like Desperate Housewives for instance) to show on RTE and TV3 should be fired.

IADT Post Graduate Open Evening

IADT are holding an open evening for prospective post graduate and mature students on this coming Thursday, the 24th of April. All the information is available here.

If anyone has an interest in the Cyberpsychology masters (or any of the IADT courses) the open evening would be the place to go. Especially since the course coordinator Dr. Grainne Kirwan will be there to answer all your questions, and so will some of the students from the course. If by any chance you cannot make it and still have an interest, I would be more than willing to answer any questions in the comments of this post.

The Next “Big Thing” in Communications and Social Networking Tools

In a bold move (inspired by my wonderful foe - procrastination) I’ve begun using Twitter - it’s like mini-blogging. So, if anyone is interested in finding out what I’ve been up to between blog posts, you can find out here. Although, I will warn you - if you’re a certain lecturer expecting a certain topic for a certain research proposal on Friday - do NOT click that link. Recently I started using Linkedin too - for social networking in professional circles.

It’s really interesting how different the web is to the Internet I first started using as a teen. Today there are so many incredible communications and social networking tools available online, but it has always seemed like everyone in the States have been consistently 100’s of steps ahead of us (the Irish) with regard to embracing these as valid methods of communication and expression. Although, 10 years ago I could barely manage to find a synchronous online conversation with anyone - because everyone was asleep after that faithful 6pm-the-dial-up-charges-are-cheaper hour. At least times are starting to change and there are a few (definitely not comparable to the Americans) Irish people using the likes of LinkedIN and Twitter.

When I really got thinking about it though, I realised how many different communication and social networking tools I had embraced in the past. It goes a little something like below…

E-mail address @ hotmail > Newsgroups > Chat Rooms @ Yahoo! > mIRC chat > American Message Boards > Home Page with Guestbook @ Geocities > E-mail address @ Yahoo! > Yahoo! Messenger > Own Group with Message Boards and Chat @ Yahoo! > MSN Messenger > Irish Message Boards > Livejournal > MySpace > Blog @ own hosting site > Youtube > Bebo > E-mail address @ Gmail > Gtalk > Facebook > Second Life > Flickr > LinkedIN > Twitter

It’s a strange progression as you move from one online communications technology to the next, thriving on the newness of each new site. But like all things, boredom soon sets in or your motivation for interacting with it diminishes and you move on. Even the Irish Bebo explosion, at least in my own social circles, has become recently very subdued. Which is surprising as I had assumed the new features (facebook like applications) would bring everyone back into the fold.

What causes so many of these once “revolutionary” websites to fall to the wayside? How is it that something new can come along and steal all your users/customers? Why aren’t interfaces upgraded and features added and removed? Why weren’t they tracking trends online to keep up with change? When there are existing social networks in place, wouldn’t it just be easier for us all to stay in one place, rather than moving to the next “big thing”.

Spotted: Tesco Milk Advertising Space

The Americans have missing school children on their milk - we get… advertising!

Spotted: Too Much Free Time

The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences

The Psychology Society of Ireland doesn’t appear to update their website very much (also, another fine example of antiquated web design!) therefore I cannot access information on all of the awards from the Psychology Congress. But, I did want to mention the work by Colin Gallagher, a final year student from IADT (Psychology Applied to I.T) who received a well deserved commendation for his research presentation. Not only is his research fascinating and his presentation enjoyable, he was more than capable of handling the multitude of questions the adjudicators and audience threw at him. An award well deserved. Below is his abstract, taken from “The Irish Psychologist” Vol. 34, no.9 - I’ve also added some relevant web-links.

The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences: Comparing Introverts and Extraverts

The current study examined the distracting effects of music on introverts and extraverts with regard to their personal space preferences in public spaces. There has been no prior investigation into the possible link between personal space and music. The now pervasive behaviour of listening to music in public is possibly a reaction to the modern hi-density urban situations that people live in nowadays and music could be a way of easing people’s feelings of crowding. Participants in this study performed a simple personal space measure with music and without, and then completed a personality test (NEO PI-R). The research result found there was a significant reduction in personal space boundaries of the particpants when listening to music. This supports Worchel and Teddlie’s theory that distractions reduce personal space. The introvert sample were found to be most affected indicating that introverts find music more distracting, as was found by Furnham and Bradley.

I’m certain that anyone that uses public transport, especially the Luas or Dart, will agree with these results. I for one, feel a lot more uncomfortable without my earphones in. Though, if I myself had been conducting this study, I would have included a third condition - earplugs. I would be curious about the results of this, and whether any significant reduction in personal space boundaries would be at all comparable to the “with music” condition.

Wordpress Themes

I’ve only just caught up with everyone else online and have upgraded to the newest version of Wordpress. In the upgrade I lost all of my tags and all of the customisation of my theme. Unfortunately, I’ll be stuck with the current blog design (which I’m not happy with at all) until I have more free time - currently trying to finish up a consumer psychology essay and write my thesis research proposal for the purposes of gaining ethical approval from the college.

As soon as college is wrapped up I think I might just build my own theme from the bottom up - it’s been a long time since I’ve had any web or graphic design projects, so it’ll be a nice challenge. If anyone has any experience in designing their own Wordpress theme I would love to hear from you, or if anyone can steal Sabrina Dent’s beautiful theme for me, that would be even better!

Psychology Congress Highlight: Flow States

I returned late last night from the Psychology Student Congress held in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick and I must say - I really enjoyed myself. I found Limerick to be a vibrant, clean and enjoyable city. I tried to see as many IT related presentations as I could and the highlight for me was from Michael Malone, an undergraduate Psychology Applied to IT student from IADT. Below is his abstract, taken from “The Irish Psychologist” Vol. 34, no.9 - I’ve also added some relevant web-links.

The Physiological Correlates of “Flow” States Within an IT Environment

Since the initial conception of the “Flow” construct a vast amount of psychological research has focused on identifying its key subjective components and investigating its supposed association with elevating human performance capacity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). However, the most distinguishable characteristic of this research is its complete dependency on qualitative research methods. There has been no research conducted thus far investigating the molecular concomitants of flow states. For this study 8 participants (6 males, 2 females) were requested to play a videogame (Flow TM) which was specifically designed to induce flow states (Chen, 2006). Heart rate and electro-dermal activity (EDA) were recorded during game play. An adapted FSS-2 (Flow State Scale Revised) questionnaire was then administered to measure flow levels experienced during gameplay. It is anticipated that the molecular activity associated with increased Flow levels will resemble that of deep meditation (i.e, decreases in both heart rate and skin conductance) due to their similarly described subjective state (Marr, 2001). Analysis of results is pending. Results will be discussed with reference to the methodological challenges facing future flow research and possible benefits derived from such research.

Consider the feelings you get when you’re “in the zone” and completely immersed in your computer, even forgetting to eat and being completely unaware of the passage of time (I can certainly relate!). The above piece of research hypothesized that this was similar to a meditative state. The actual results of the study did not support this hypothesis (though decreased heart rates were found) but I believe that this was due to the small scale of the study - due to time constraints, as it was only a undergraduate piece of research. If participants had been tested more than once, I believe that it would have led to a more relaxed state as they would have had no anxiety related to the equipment being used to monitor their physiological responses, and of course, would have had some experience playing the game.

I sincerely hope that someone in either IADT or another college can fund this as a long term postgraduate research study.

Coincidentally the British Psychological Society held their annual conference in Dublin this week and Jazz Biscuit has pointed out all the “tabloid fodder” studies that were discussed.