If you had to relate the internet to a specific emotional feeling, what would that feeling be?
In Effects of Web Interactivity: A Meta-Analysis, Fan Yang and Fuyuan Shen argue that the use of the internet and web interactivity, in general, is typically correlated with feelings of “enjoyment, positive attitudes, and desirable behavioral intentions.” Essentially, using the internet and being happy go hand in hand.
Yang and Shen came to this conclusion after a review of 63 different studies including 13,484 participants. Throughout their report, they do note certain studies that had conflicting results from their argument. While looking at different reports over the past few decades covering different variables such as cognition, enjoyment, attitude, and behavioral intention using measurements of different emotions and actions such as comprehension, pleasure, fun, and other similar feelings. Yang and Shen provide a very solid argument in relating the usage of web interactivity to the feelings of enjoyment and happiness.
From personal experience, as well, I would typically associate web interactivity and happiness. The majority of content on the web right now is purely for entertainment purposes, and that’s the content I typically find myself following.
Andreas ~ This is a super interesting study. It sort of reminds me of the logic that Zuckerberg and company used to create ‘the Facebook’: The more entertaining the site, the more engaged and interactive users will be. I’m not surprised that these researchers came to the conclusion that using the internet makes people happy because we have designed our technology to mimic the value that we derive from the interactivity we traditionally experience in our day-to-day lives. As our society becomes more technology-dependent, the line between authentic and inauthentic interactivity will become so blurred that we will need to understand how we experience these emotions on a fundamental level to make sense of how we can continue to live meaningful lives.