Show Notes
Dr. Allison Eden, associate professor at Michigan State University, and Robby delve into her recently published
research on media habits and well-being during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss how media use changed between the Spring and Fall of 2020, why some social media platforms were better suited as a hedonic distraction to help people cope with stress and anxiety and how people selected content to regulate their moods and reframe the pandemic.
They also talk about gaming and virtual reality and speculate about how people might select media to optimize well-being in a 5-year-future pandemic.
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About the SPARTIE Lab:
The SPARTIE Lab is part of the greater academic community at the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State University. More information on the lab's research projects, staff, and work can be found on the
SPARTIE Lab website.
About the host:
Dr. Rabindra (Robby) Ratan, Ph. D., is an associate professor and AT&T Scholar at Michigan State University’s Department of Media and Information and is the director of the SPARTIE Lab.
He is also an affiliated faculty member of the MSU Department of Psychology, the MSU College of Education’s program in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, and the MSU Center for Gender in a Global Context. Ratan received his Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, his M.A. in Communication from Stanford University, and his B.A. in Science, Technology and Society, also from Stanford University.
Dr. Ratan conducts research on the effects of human-technology interaction, examining how media technologies (e.g., avatars, agents, automobiles) influence meaningful outcomes (e.g., persuasion, education, health/safety). He is particularly interested in the Proteus effect, media-rich transportation contexts, perceptions of media as self-representations and/or social others, avatarification for health and education, and gender stereotypes in gaming contexts.
Dr. Ratan lives near Lansing with his family. More information on his work can be found on
his website.