Media = Real life (What does it mean for video games?)

Reeves & Nass (1996) draw the conclusion from the series of experiments, i.e., people treat and respond to media in the same way as they treat and respond to other people in everyday social interaction. In other words, people treat media as “social actors”.

Media Equation is a relatively new study on Human Computer Interaction. Prior to reading this article, I have not realized that people unconsciously act as if the media are people, although there do exist many examples in our real lives to show the evidence of the media equation, such as stories illustrated in Chapter 1.

According to the theory of media equation, it is very reasonable why simulation games and Second Life are so popular in language learning and other educational fields. Reeves & Nass (1996, p8) indicate that “(b)ecause people have a strong positive bias toward social relationships and predictable environments, the more a media technology is consistent with social and physical rules, the more enjoyable the technology will be to use”.

It implies that the designer of video games should supply some characteristics/personalities, that are favorable in everyday social interactions (such as the politeness and the praise), into the game. On the other hand, the media equation suggests that one important criterion to evaluate simulation games is to see how and to what extent they reliably recreate real world contexts.

However, the media equation has brought up some worries in the field of video games and virtual world, since the boundary of “media” and “real life” has been blurred.

1. Players might not be able to escape from the computer gaming environment to the real life. You will be shocked after looking at the following news – Online Gamer Killed for Selling Virtual Weapon: an online gamer stabbed competitor Zhu repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon sabre", used in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3. Another example is that Shawn, a game addict, killed himself in front of the computer game- Everquest, which I reported in one of my previous posts. This kind of stories is so terrible, just because players thought of avatars in the game as real themselves, unconsciously and fundamentally.

2. People are so automatic to treat media as equal to real life, especially in the environment of simulations. However, it’s impossible to simulate every nuance of a real-world situation, especially in critical industries. If people can not distinguish the real life and media, there might be dangers. Let’s image, a worker has no experience of a real nuclear reactor, but only some simulated experience. In front of a real crisis involving a real nuclear reactor, he/she says “Let me do it, I have experiences to deal with it”. Do you dare to have him/her to try?

3. The theory of media equation leads to the debate on “violence” of the computer games. By observing the aggression in the video games, players begin to learn how to aggress in the real life.

As discussed above, video games does have some bad influences on people’s everyday lives, if they simply treat media and real life as equal. Therefore, the question is how to protect people from the negative influences of computer games. Reeves & Nass (1996, p7-8) suggest that the media equation doesn’t apply when “people are quite capable of thinking their way around it”. Consequently, the bottom line is help players treat games as learning tools and/or relaxing tools “that only represent the real world but are not real themselves”.

The implications for educators are

1. Students need to be trained as “critical thinker” and “active learner” in the process of playing video games. New London Group (1996) proposes the pedagogy of Multiliteracies. They report that learners should be able to critically analyze and evaluate the media from historical, social, cultural, political and ideological perspectives. Students should not only enjoy playing computer games, but also carefully think about and critique games in the sociocultural contexts. Such critical thinking is absent in many schooling practices as well. Therefore, the teacher should play an important role in guiding and scaffolding students to critically analyze and evaluate the relationship between video games and real life, by utilizing some pedagogical strategies in the classroom.

2. Real-life training can not totally be replaced by simulations. For example, the ESL teacher should provide rich natural and real-life communications in the classroom, rather than just putting students in front of computers with language learning video games or other online communication tools.

In conclusion, considering the media equation is beneficial to video games in many ways: improving the design of video games; providing criterion to evaluate video games; understanding the drawbacks of video games, and giving implications for remedying the drawbacks of video games through teachers’ implementation of pedagogical strategies in the classroom.

The media equation has impacted the work of video games and simulations a lot. I look forward to seeing my peers' reflection on this issue.

Reference:

New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.

Reeves, B., & Nass, C. (1996). Ch 1, The Media Equation, pp. 3-18 in The Media Equation. Cambridge University Press.