Gender, personality influence use of interactive tools online
Are 'people persons' also 'machine persons' when they interact online?


Date:
August 13, 2021
Source:
Penn State
Summary:
A team of researchers found that people considered websites more
interactive if they had tools to facilitate communication between
users, often referred to as computer-mediated communication, or CMC.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== People's personality -- such as how extroverted or introverted they are --
and their gender can be linked to how they interact online, and whether
they prefer interacting with a system rather than with other people.


==========================================================================
In a study, a team of researchers found that people considered
websites more interactive if they had tools to facilitate communication
between users, often referred to as computer-mediated communication,
or CMC. However, male extroverts also considered sites with tools that
let them interact with the computer, called human-computer interaction,
or HCI, to be more interactive compared to extroverted women, who viewed
sites with CMC tools to be more interactive.

"When you go to a website -- for example, the Google search engine --
you're essentially engaging in HCI, which is different from CMC, which is
when you're communicating with other humans through computer technology,"
said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in
the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of
the Media Effects Research Laboratory. "When we talk about HCI here,
it's really about the degree to which the system or the machine allows
us to interact with it, and it includes everything from how we swipe and
tap on our mobile devices, to how we try to access different information through links on a website. When we talk about CMC, it is about the tools
to chat with somebody else, like a customer service agent through an
online portal, or when we're having a video chat via zoom, for example." Knowing who your web visitors are and what engages them is an important
part of creating good user experiences, added Sundar, who is also an
affiliate of the Institute for Computational and Data Science. "For
developers, it's useful to know who will appreciate what types of
interactivity that you have to offer, or what kind of interactivity
should you offer to which kind of people.

"These are actually quite important business decisions, because they cost
a lot of money and have a lot of backend consequences," said Sundar. For example, in an e-commerce site, which may be primarily trafficked by
women, the findings suggest that efforts should be made to provide ways
to talk to other people, such as chat tools, rather than simply tools
to interact with the computer, such as being able to turn an image of
a product in all directions.

Real world behaviors in the virtual world When people use websites,
many of the habits and behaviors they have adopted in real life influence
their behaviors online, said Yan Huang, assistant professor of integrated strategic communication in the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston and first author of the paper. The study is in
line with that, she added, demonstrating how people who are extroverted
in real life also like to interact in virtual settings.



==========================================================================
"Our findings largely supported the hypothesis that as people's level of extroversion goes up, they're more likely to recognize the interactive potential of the site, no matter if it's communicating with the machine,
or using the computer to talk to other people, but gender also made a difference here," said Huang. "What we saw was that extroversion has
slightly different effects for men compared to women, in terms of the
types of interactivity that they appreciate more." Interactivity also
boosted attitudes about the website, improving the chances that the
users would find the site interesting or appealing, she added.

To study the reaction to web tools, the researchers set up four different experimental conditions and randomly assigned each of the 99 participants
to one of those conditions. They were asked to browse a movie news
website that either featured, or did not feature, tools to communicate
with the machine and/ or other humans. In this case, hyperlinks were
used to interact with the system, while a comment function was used to communicate with other humans.

Participants were instructed to imagine that they were going to choose
a movie to watch as they browsed the site for at least three minutes.

After they browsed the website, participants answered a series of
questions assessing their experience on the website and their attitude
toward it. They also answered questions that were used to determine their
level of extroversion, such as "I see myself as someone who likes to mix socially with people" and "I usually let myself go and have a good time
at a party." Because tools that developers are using to communicate
both with the computer and with fellow users are always growing and
changing, future studies could examine how these newer tools influence
people, according to the researchers, who reported their findings in a forthcoming issue of Computers in Human Behavior, available online now.



==========================================================================
"In this study, we only operationalized one function for CMC, which was
the comment function and one function for HCI in the form of layered hyperlinks," said Huang. "It would be interesting to test whether the
findings actually hold true for newer interactive features, such as those
found in augmented reality or AI chatbot applications." Sundar added
that another research direction would be to take the studies out of the
media laboratory and into real life.

"One way to do this would be online, in a computationally intensive way,"
said Sundar. "A more valid way of testing this would be to actually
see how people - - how men and women and extroverts and introverts --
interact with a variety of different types of interactive features on
a variety of different online sites." Sundar and Huang worked with
Zhiyao Ye, senior editor, SINA Corporation and Ariel Celeste Johnson,
senior account manager, Google. Both are former students in the media
studies master's program at Penn State.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Penn_State. Original written by Matt Swayne. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yan Huang, S. Shyam Sundar, Zhiyao Ye, Ariel Celeste Johnson. Do
women
and extroverts perceive interactivity differently than men and
introverts? Role of individual differences in responses to HCI
vs. CMC interactivity. Computers in Human Behavior, 2021; 123:
106881 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106881 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210813120018.htm

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