Control is Not Control (but it still feels good)

[Ripped from here]

The desire for control seems to be a universal motivator - we are endlessly fascinated by our ability to effect change outside of ourselves.

Our macro ability to modify our environment is one of the defining features of humanity, but at a personal level we love to control the world around us - it's a corollary of our desire for choice, despite the paradoxes that brings.

Babies demonstrate the appeal of control [in controlled experiments].

[Whilst experimenting on babies sounds a bit unpleasant, infant psychology is truly fascinating. Ask yourself, how do babies think, before they can speak?

While you are asking yourself, you are thinking in words - they can't do that.

It must be like accessing the world without the filter of language, before Lacan's Great Other, the language instinct, exerts its desire for control, slicing up the continuum of reality into chunks, things, words... but I digress. Kind of.]

In the Paradox of Choice, Schwartz mentions an experiment where one group of babies - those who had control [but not, paradoxically, the control group] - were put into cribs face up. If they turned their heads they activated some dancing animal lights above them.

They quickly learn that the dancing animals respond to them moving and so they keep doing it again and again and again.

[Babies love repetition - they control basically nothing in their lives, so when they see something "Again! Again!" it's something that isn't new, something therefore they feel control over.]

A second group also get to see the animals, when group one activates them, but has no control. They quickly lose interest.

It's not the light show that is interesting - it's the control:

I did this! Isn't it great. And I can do it again whenever I want.

This feeling of control is rewarding - in fact it may be crucial to remaining chipper. Some believe that one of the triggers of depression is learned helplessness - the feeling that nothing you do can really to alter your situation.

Prior [perhaps repeated] exposure to uncontrollable negative events makes you think that nothing you do makes any difference.

That's what I think Copeland was talking about in Generation X, when he said:

Control is not control.

The illusion of freedom, delivered through the illusion of [too much] consumer choice, ultimately resolves to an understanding that nothing you do [buy] makes any difference, which precipitates slacker ennui.

Maybe.

Anyway, the point being is that we want to have an impact on our environment - it makes us feel good, which perhaps lies at the heart of the appeal of interactive media - by definition it is content which you can influence.

The rise of games and gaming behaviours is undoubtedly a response to our desire to have greater control over content - and it's going to continue to spread into other content forms.

With things like this interactive video trailer for new crystal meth cookery drama Breaking Bad [found via Hyper] - it's ultimately a trailer that you can click on - but that makes it something different, blurring the boundaries between video and website and game.

And, although you know you can't really change the outcome [it really wants you to watch the trailer] - it still feels good to be controlling the experience.

So, if you want people to get involved in your communication, give them something to do.

Comments

[Sam Roberts]

Hey Faris, very interesting piece, hope NYC is treating you well.

The point about depression resulting from a perceived lack of control is interesting. It reminds me of something about the locus of control. Some people exhibit primarily an 'internal' locus (i.e. believe they can have influence over themselves and their environments), whereas others feel that things are done to them and therefore perceive an 'external' locus of control. These differences can have profound impacts on the resultant life experiences, successes etc as those who feel in greater control are more likely to pursue goals and ambitions rather than slipping into apathy.

Are these characteristics the result of prior experience, perhaps along the lines of the baby experiment, or are they present in us at birth? Do these loci have any influence on reactions and interactions with consumer choice and interactive media? No answers but food for thought. More on this at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

[Helge Tennø]

Hopefully adding to your post:

Dan Gilbert (Book: Stumbling upon happiness) also defines one of the human species unique traits as “creating future”, or imaging future events and results. And Gilbert starts the book by asking the question; why do we do this?:

“We look into the future so that we can predict it. We want to predict it so that we can control it. But why do we want to control it? Because we find it gratifying to exercise control.”

He references a research example with patients at an old peoples home given plants to take care of. Where one sees that the group of patients given a plant lives longer than the ones not given a plant. At the same time, when the research ended half of the old people with plants had to hand them back - and these people passed away with a higher rate than those who never had any plant at all. As Gilbert states:

“Gaining control can have a positive impact, but loosing it can be worse than not having had it at all.”

The book is a highly recommended read, as Gilbert has been described to be a mix of Gladwell and Levitt/Dubner in his writing style. Also check out his presentations on:

TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/97
PopTech!: http://www.poptech.com/popcasts/popcasts.aspx?lang=&viewcastid=163

[John]

One caveat, Faris. We're not trying to engage babies and that sigificantly ups the ante on the quality of the methods one employs - especially since something else is just a click away. It may be a browser issue, but personally I got very bored, very quickly with the Bad Men trailer and my residual feelings are therefore not good.

In similar vein, I attended the launch of an educational game platform instigated by a TV channel. Talking to some of the target audience, I discovered that the gamers amongst them declared the game to be too simple (perhaps inevitably so, given the budgets involved) and were thus less likely to buy into the educational element or recommend it to others.

The control they wanted was control that was harder to achieve - both for them and for the producers of the game.

[Faris]

Hello!

Thanks Sam - love the focus of control thought - interesting if applied to brands and marketers - where does the locus of control lie for brands?

Hi Helge! I LOVE that book. It's amazing. I used it a bunch in my thesis - thanks for the build!

John - I take your point dude - but it's the principle of control - as I said in an earlier post - games are all about learning the right angle for the learning curve - and realistically there is a user base with very different levels of interactive facility - which means you need to provide a spectrum of control...

But I don't think that makes the point invalid...

In fact I think taking control of systems and gaming them is prevalent in modern life - there's a good article in Wired about that.

[Anton]

Hey Faris

Hope all is going well sir. I found a piece called Vodka for the Depaul Trust awhile ago:

http://themediafoundry.com/Case-Studies/Media-Marketing-Creative/Publicis.aspx

I no longer work at Publicis and it was before my time so I'm not plugging it, just that with TV moving faster and faster into a digital space the idea of having control there I find quite exciting not necessarily with TV advertising but with TV programming.

I guess the model would look much like the one the game Fable was based on whereby there is the core story line and actions/decisions take you on a slightly different path but always swoop back into the central plot, that way you provide the illusion of control without having to spend a limitless amount on production.

I guess the 2 key factors here is one - having script writers who are good enough to create that tree like story line and still make everything work with every combination of decision/action with numerous characters and it be engaging - no easy task. And second that the technology can support this i.e. it isn't slow and tedious. I think that Vodka ad could only be broadcasted in Hull or Kingston as they were the only ones with the technology as a region to support two way TV messaging.

That or I'll just have to find those books I had as a kid where I could decide my own fate...though I did check both options always to inform my choice.

Peace

[Karl Turley]

I had been doing some thinking around the effects of choice and participatory culture on traditional marketing communications theory, as much of it seems very linear and was quiet rightly based around the mass media paradigm that was prominent. I was looking at the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and if you replaced Interest with Interaction and put it at the centre of the model, where it can influence the other areas you get a model that incorporates the human desire to control, participate and choose their route through communication to purchase. Basically promoting opening up your brand and its communications to the consumer, and as consumers become further educated as knowledge hunters this becomes ever more pertinent, let them create their own story.

[John]

Gaming systems is certainly prevalent and came up at a meeting I was at yesterday. Are you talking about the latest issue of Wired because I'd like to check out the article?

And yes it's all about different angles for different groups - I was just wondering aloud if the sophistication of gaming that already exists has created a range of expertise/experience throughout any target audience which makes the whole hard to satisfy.

Don't know why I referred to Bad Men which is I think another show completely - just goes to show my comments tend to nonsense!

[Anton]

I think the Fabke engine was mentioned in about 3 months ago in Wired. It was an article about how no console game has matched it's diverse plot and then showed an awesome diagram of how it worked. I'm kicking myself now because that would the perfect way to explain how you would handle TV production.

[Anton]

I think the Fable engine was mentioned about 3 months ago in Wired. It was an article about how no console game has matched its diverse plot and then showed an awesome diagram of how it worked. I'm kicking myself now because that would be the perfect way to explain how you would handle TV production when planning interactive broadcast

[Faris]

Hey Anton - am cool thanks - I had forgotten about that int. ad - cheers for the link - agree that crafting interactive narratives is no small ask - building in interactivity can take many forms I guess.

Hey John - this is the article:

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/15-11/st_essay

Fable looks cool - I've been waiting for Spore to come out forever...