sinéad's lifestream

When I was little I caught a fluffy bumblebee.

I put him in a glass jar and was careful to punch air-holes in the the lid and I left him overnight in the backgarden on the windowsill.

The next day he had died, and I was really sad to see him go. Myself, my brother and the little girl and boy next door decided to give him a proper burial. We dug a little hole in the flowerbed in the next door neighbour’s backgarden and had a funeral for our dearly departed insect friend. In the middle of the ceremony the bee climbed up out of the hole in the ground and scared the bee-jesus out of us. We ran screaming from that garden as the zom-bee flew away never to be seen again.

It’s one of my earliest childhood memories and it still creeps me out a little bit.

What’s your earliest memory?

Inspired by a Twitter conversation with @Burkie.

Yes, I know that IS a long subject line… it’s the title of my research which has been printed and hard-bound, and handed into the college, and I’ve presented it at the PSI Student Congress. It’s all finally over and done with. So, if anyone is interested in what I’ve been doing for the last 6 months…. read on.

The Memory Recall Of Pop-Up Advertisements Amongst Experienced Internet Users:

The aim of my study was to examine the relationship between Internet experience and memory retention of pop-up advertisements. Participants completed an online survey about their Internet experience, during which a pop-up advertisement appeared. Participants then completed a paper-pencil test examining their recall of the pop-up. This study found no relationship between experience and memory retention, online. However, low memory recall rates of the pop-up advertisement were found. This study also found that the more experienced a user becomes online the more likely they are to use pop-up blocking software. Implications of this research suggest Internet users learn to actively attempt to remove pop-ups from their surfing experience, that pop-ups are ineffective forms of advertising online, and that online advertisers should focus on alternative forms of advertising.

For the completed dissertation you can download a PDF version here or view the online version here.

There’s a couple of things I wish I could have done this year: use the eye-tracker on my participants, test the stress levels of participants using the net with pop-up blocking software and then without. But alas, doing either of those things would have required twice as much work by myself, and I just didn’t have the time or equipment. Maybe for post-grad.