• About Larri

  Junior majoring in Cognitive Science and Psychology, minoring in Sociology / Anthropology.

Blog Entries:

• The Impact of Communication Technology on Privacy and Data in a Digital World (Final Project) May 8, 2019

  To check out my short video explanation, click here! The Impact of Communication Technology on Privacy and Data in a Digital World             In a world dominated by the Internet, information is shared with ease, as communication technology allows connectivity to flourish on a global scale. However, with new ways to communicate and share data…
• From Visual Simulation to Virtual Reality Games April 23, 2019

  In From Visual Simulation to Virtual Reality Games, Zyda explains the possibility for game developers to “have the potential to influence not just the future of interactive entertainment but also the future of interactive training, education, and simulation.” (p. 32). In order to do so, he argues that video game research must have three key…
• The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected April 10, 2019

  In The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected, Nellie Bowles of the New York Times covers the digital gap from an angle most don’t expect: instead of the rich having access to technology and the poor lagging behind, the rich have the luxury to be removed from screens while…
• Digital Na(t)ives? April 10, 2019

  In Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation, Eszter Hargittai challenges the idea that those who have grown up in the digital age are automatically computationally competent. Instead, she argues that “socioeconomic status is an important predictor of how people are incorporating the Web into their everyday lives…
• Technology and Dependency -- Social Media Addiction, Self Esteem, and Life Satisfaction April 4, 2019

  In The Relations Among Social Media Addiction, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction in University Students, Hawi and Samaha explore, as their title suggests, the relationships between social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction by surveying university students in Lebanon. Overall, they interpret their results to mean that “independently from culture and gender, there exists a negative…
• Connected, but alone? March 25, 2019

  In her TEDtalk Connected, but alone? Sherry Turkle, professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, explains that “those little devices in our pockets [cell phones], are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are.” To Turkle, we live in a technology saturated world in…
• Impression Management 2.0 March 21, 2019

  In Impression Management 2.0, The Relationship of Self-Esteem, Extraversion, Self-Efficacy, and Self-Presentation Within Social Networking Sites, authors Kramer and Winter investigated “the relationship between self-reported (offline) personality traits and (online) self-presentation in social networking profiles. (p. 106). Overall, they conclude that “people who feel competent in presenting themselves will take the opportunity to do so…
• An Analysis of Course Site From the Perspective of Usability (Midterm Project) March 7, 2019

  To check out my podcast, click here! To check out my proposed changes to Course Site, click here!   An Analysis of Course Site from the Perspective of Usability Every student that attends Lehigh University will have to interact with Course Site at some point during their academic career. As explained by Lehigh’s Library and…
• Can Robots Manifest Personality? February 28, 2019

  In Can Robots Manifest Personality?: An Empirical Test of Personality Recognition, Social Responses, and Social Presence in Human-Robot Interaction, Lee et al. argue that “personality is an essential feature for creating socially interactive robots.” (p. 754). Lee et al. focused on personality for three reasons: “very few studies on the personality of social robots exist,”…
• The Effectiveness of Interactive Multimedia-Based E-Learning February 25, 2019

  In Interactive Multimedia-Based E-Learning: A Study of Effectiveness, Dongsong Zhang of the University of Maryland states that “a key challenge is to provide learners with easy, intuitive, and fast access to the content” (p. 149) and argues that “to create effective learning, e-learning environments should provide interactive instructional content that learners can view on a…
• Computer Mediated Communication in Long Distance Relationships February 20, 2019

  In Channels of Computer-Mediated Communication and Satisfaction in Long-Distance Relationships, Hampton et al. found that “the frequency of utilizing various channels of communication was associated with relationship satisfaction and communication satisfaction.” (p. 171). They argue that “if face-to-face contact is limited, couples should find other ways to create a sense of a shared social presence…
• The Effects of Modality February 14, 2019

  In Exploring the Impact of Modality on Perceptions of Credibility for Online News Stories, Spiro Kiousis argues that “a distinction needs to be made between the availability of multimedia content and the extent to which people actually use it” in order to properly understand “how perceptions of online news credibility are formed.” (p. 348). Kiousis…
• Human Computer Interaction: Uses, Usability, and User Experience February 14, 2019

  In Human-Compute Interaction: Psychology as a Science of Design, John Carroll argues that “HCI is the visible part of computer science” that is “a science of design” which “seeks to understand and support human beings interacting with and through technology.” (p. 62). In the article, Carroll walks one through the creation of and changes to…
• Computer Mediated Communication February 6, 2019

  In The Relationship Between Facebook Use and Well-Being Depends on Communication Type and Tie Strength, Burke and Kraut argue that “people derive benefits from online communication, as long it comes from people they care about and has been tailored for them.” (p. 265). Based on five complementary theories, the authors claim that “receiving composed, targeted…
• Human Computer Interaction, Dix et al. 2004, Chapter 1: The Human February 5, 2019

  In the introduction of Human Computer Interaction by Dix et al. (2004), the authors explain that “computers and related devices have to be designed with an understanding that people with specific tasks in mind will want to use them in a way that is seamless with respect to their everyday work.” (p. 2). The authors…
• Theorizing Interactivity's Effects January 30, 2019

  In Theorizing Interactivity’s Effects, S. Shyam Sundar of Penn State University argues that previous means of measures of interactivity are inherently flawed in that they are premised on the individual user, instead of examining the effects on “the act and impact of communication.” (p. 385). Sundar instead explores potential ways to explore interactivity behaviorally, attitudinally,…
• The Medium is the Message January 28, 2019

  In The Medium is the Message, Marshall McLuhan argues that the medium with which a message is sent is itself another message; he claims that “the ‘content’ of any medium is always another medium.” (p. 107).  To McLuhan, “the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that…