Book Reading #48 - Media Equation

Part 1: Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Summary:
This first paper revolved around how humans treat computers. Even though most people claim that computers do not deserve humane treatment, they still show tendencies to treat the computer with compassion. People still treat the computer as a human, even when they shouldn't. 
Part 2: Computers are Social Actors
Summary:
This paper continued the theme from the previous paper by focusing on the social interactions between humans and the computer. It explained 5 experiments that determined the differences between "self" and "other" in people's minds, then asked the people about the computers afterward. The computers would praise, criticize, or tutor the user, among other things, and the group studied the results of each action. Part 3: Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?
Summary:
This last paper tried to delve into creating a personality for a computer. They believed personalities could be programmed into the computer, and demonstrated by the speech/communication habits. People preferred computers with traits close to their own. Discussion:
I thought these papers were pretty interesting. From the first two, I thought it was very interesting how people can treat computers with the social norms you'd expect someone to treat another human. When the computer treated the people well, they tried to reciprocate. This is amazing to me considering it's still a computer. Also, the final bit about personalities is pretty cool too. From the first two papers, it doesn't surprise me at all that people would treat a computer better that had a personality similar to their own. I've never really thought about human computer interaction in this space, so I thought it was pretty interesting.