Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: 1. The media equation; Part II. Media and Manners: 2. Politeness; 3. Interpersonal distance; 4. Flattery; 5. Judging others and ourselves; Part III. Media and Personality: 6. Personality of characters; 7. Personality of interfaces; 8. Imitating a personality; Part IV. Media and emotion: 9. Good versus bad; 10. Negativity; 11. Arousal; Part V. Media and Social Roles: 12. Specialists; 13. Teammates; 14. Gender; 15. Voices; 16. Source orientation; Part VI. Media and Form: 17. Image size; 18. Fidelity; 19. Synchrony; 20. Motion; 21. Scene changes; 22. Subliminal images; Part VII. Final Words: 23. Conclusions about the media equation; References.

Reviews

"A badly-needed antidote against the sterility, impoliteness, and outright hostility of the interaction between people and media." Donald A. Norman, Vice President, Apple Computer

"Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves have spent the last decade working in the area of social responses to technology. We brought them into our team, and they have shown us some amazing things." Bill Gates, Founder and CEO, Microsoft Corporation

"I've enjoyed reading this fascinating book. Perhaps it is the first real psychology of media...The book will be especially useful and interesting to designers who wish to make a *really* friendly computer (though the authors will explain that friendliness is not always what people want)." Sara Kiesler, Professor, Carnegie-Mellon

"If [Byron and Nass'] results as reported in this startling and well-written book are confirmed by further research, the conclusions have profound implications for anyone who designs or uses computer software or communication media. At long last, social scientists are applying the methods of systematic observation and testing to some of the most troubling questions of the modern era, questions about the kind of people we've become, now that we've created machines that mimic our thoughts and behavior." Howard Rheingold, author of Virtual Community

"In a series of compelling experiments, Nass and Reeves show how the potentially most powerful educational tool of the future, the computer, elicits the mindlessness of the user." Ellen J. Langer, Professor of Psychology, Harvard

"Maintaining a jargon-free, readable style, the authors share their obvious enjoyment of the humorous situations that often arose during the experiments." Library Journal

"Reeves and Nass have discovered some fascinating things about how humans react to technology. Their work has implications at many levels--from product design to the design of experiments in social psychology." John Perry, Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University

"The results in this clearly written, but scholarly, book are at first humorous and eventually frightening... The Media Equation is a must-read for media professionals and a should-read for anyone with a television set. Its final message is far from cheery: While we're waiting for evolutionary adaptation to catch up, we're all at the mercy of Madison Avenue and Microsoft." James S. Howard, The Fresno Bee

"This is fascinating research, engagingly written, and revealing startling insights." Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future

"The best book on this topic..." Speech Technology