Ruminations on our relationship with technology
Christopher Cocchiarella Do online product reviews have a positivity problem? Summary: When reading product reviews online, we often see lots of extremely positive ratings—and just a few negative ones. What’s happening when there’s almost no nuance in how people rate things? Do these ratings have a positivity problem? When shopping online, we often read product reviews. After … Read more
Why do social media amplify outrage and division? One of the reasons I don’t sign up for most social networking sites is that they seem to bring out the worst in us. Nowadays, there’s never a shortage of angry outbursts on social media. In fact, Nature Human Behavior, a cognitive and behavioral science journal, recently … Read more
Are AI chatbots examples of general intelligence or cognitive automation? As artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT become famous, I can’t help but notice how a perpetual topic of debate about AI continues to reemerge. Are these chatbots examples of general intelligence or cognitive automation? To understand this debate, let’s briefly define what we mean … Read more
Swift’s use of satire and science fiction to ask: Why invent that? As someone who enjoys reading both satire and science fiction, I absolutely love Jonathan Swift’s novel, Gulliver’s Travels. Published in 1726, it soon became a famous—if not infamous—satire on modern European nations. What’s more, Gulliver’s Travels also became notable as what’s arguably the … Read more
Is it wise to trust digital crowds? Whenever I go online to order something and look at customer reviews, doubts may pop into my mind. Sometimes, I have second thoughts about what I’m ordering. Should I really buy it, or shouldn’t I? But more frequently, I wonder about the ratings I’m looking at. Why should … Read more
Preventing human error with better designed technology Recently, I moved to a new apartment with a gas stove in the kitchen. The stove works great, but whenever I use it, I almost always make the same mistake. I turn on the wrong burner. The problem I have is that I can’t tell immediately which control … Read more
When to heed usability-flexibility tradeoffs I recently moved from the Twin Cities to Philadelphia, and luckily, I bought myself a GPS device beforehand. I’m glad I did, because it prevented me from getting lost while traveling and driving around the East Coast. Sure, I could just use a GPS app on a smartphone for the … Read more
The media ecology of how social media changed communication One of the key insights of media ecology is that when we add a new technology to our culture, we don’t just have the same culture plus the new technology. Rather, the technology changes the culture. In other words, technological innovation can change our whole way … Read more
The ethics of personalization Recently, I had the opportunity to write for Vanguard UX, the user experience area of The Vanguard Group. The goal of Vanguard UX is to provide thought leadership on various topics in the user experience profession. In this case, I decided to focus on a contentious topic in ethical design: the … Read more