How Do Interactive Media Affect Us?

Experiments on the Psychology of Interactivity

S. Shyam Sundar

James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects &

Co-Director, Media Effects Research Laboratory

Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications

Penn State University, USA

We have entered an age of interactivity, where almost all the media we use are interactive. How do these interactive media affect our psychology? A long tradition of theory and research on “media effects” has shed light on how mass media affect us, but we know very little about how newer, interactive media affect us. This talk will reveal the reasons why online interactivity is so alluring, and discuss various ways in which specific features of media technology shape our psychology. It will provide a window into the social scientific study of interactive media, by identifying the key technological and psychological elements of interactivity. It will present an original typology of interactivity and describe theoretically driven empirical research on the psychological effects of interactivity. Experiments described in the talk will illustrate how different affordances of interactive media differentially engage users and consequently their perception of media content as well as higher-order outcomes, such as empowerment.

Speaker Bio

S. Shyam Sundar (PhD, Stanford University) is James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects and founding director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. He is editor of the first-ever Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology (Wiley, 2015) and served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication from 2013 to 2017. A prolific scholar and frequently cited source on technology, Sundar has testified before the U.S. Congress as an expert witness. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), MacArthur Foundation, Facebook, Inc., and Lockheed Martin, among others. Link to Website: http://bellisario.psu.edu/people/individual/s.-shyam-sundar Link to CV: http://www.personal.psu.edu/sss12/SundarCV.pdf