Internet = water cooler chat

February 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm
filed under research

In yesterday’s New York Times, Brian Stelter wrote about the relationship between television and Internet, and how the two mediums once thought to be enemies, are now friends. Or, in my opinion, television is winning! It seems obvious now. If anyone interested in the subject had searched “internet vs. television,” he/she would have seen that market researchers like Zona Latina were aware of the future merging of the mediums back in 2000. Zona Latina presents this simple yet effective observation:

The crux of the matter is that Internet usage and television viewing are not mutually exclusive activities.  Below, we show an example of the equipment setup within a home.  On the right, there is a computer connected to the Internet.  On the left, the television is tuned to a Gloria Estefan music video on a cable television channel.  This is multi-tasking, or parallel processing.  Just because we don’t have the time to do everything we want to doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to give something up.  We can try to do everything at the same time.  In fact, if we spend a long time on the Internet, the television set on the side may be left on longer than ever.

(…)the Internet and traditional television may converge into a single medium.  If you look at the photo above, there are two video screens that look rather similar.  There are no compelling reasons, either technological or economical, for keeping them apart.  The prospects for convergence are in fact good.

I only stumbled on Zona Latina while writing this post. But it definitely foreshadowed this “water-cooler” effect.

I have recently started an online index called “Unknown Unknowns” in which I keep a daily log of all of the google trends from the previous day. After entering these terms, I write definitions for them from the top of my head based on my personal experience, things I’ve heard or my own ignorance to the subject. Frustrated with the cultural implications of information being chained to pre-determined relevance, my inspiration is Gustave Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas where he aimed to create an encylopedia that satirized clichés endemic to French Society.

In undertaking the project, I had assumed that I would have some familiarity with the things showing up in Google trends. But this is not the case. I feel like I did when my school had a few of us in 6th grade take the SAT just for kicks. My eyes glaze over in a similar way to when I stared at the bubble patterns on the scantron form. But this time, instead of it being Calculus formulas that I don’t understand, I am out in the cold because I don’t watch much television.

When I do know what the term means, I am perplexed as to why it became a popular search query. An example: The term “Shakespeare trilogy” became a popular topic of interest around 4pm, making it a top search query for February 22. My guess: Were student’s cheating on a test? – a standardized test that all middle school students had to take at the same time and they all had access to iphones and were cheating.

My hypothesis proved to be incorrect. Through a non-native English speaking web site titled “Global News,” I found this juicy bit of information posted by “smith” :

Sony Pictures United States arranged a Jeopardy Quiz Show which is a famous show through out the world. It is also termed as the top most quiz demonstrate of the United States.

This show got a big media buzz. The famous daily newspaper of United States – New York Times and The Jeopardy had joined hands for the last four years and the New York Times gave Clue of the Day. The answer to the question in Shakespeare Trilogy has been shown in the Jeopardy Show. This all was shown in the electronic as well as print media, as the TV channels as well as most of the newspapers gave stories in their next day issues.

If internet searches are skewed based on what people are looking for, perhaps we need a new search engine for people who don’t watch television.

Referenced articles:
Water-Cooler Effect: Internet Can be TV’s Friend, The New York Times
Shakespeare Trilogy, Global News
Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web, Wired
The Impact of Internet on Television Viewing, Zona Latina