Speaking of Psychology: Psychology’s influence on our digital world, with Pamela Rutledge

Psychologists are key in understanding how and why we use technology the way we do. Our smartphones and activity trackers can gauge our moods, and there are apps that can act as mobile therapists. In this episode, Pamela Rutledge, PhD, applies psychological science to interactive and mobile media technology, an evolving area of research.

Pamela Rutledge, PhDopens in new window, is director of the Media Psychology Research Centeropens in new window and on the faculty of the media psychology program at Fielding Graduate Universityopens in new window, where she designs and teaches courses on brand psychology, media storytelling, audience engagement and corporate social responsibility for brands. 

Rutledge is also a consultant, speaker, writer and researcher. She consults on a number of media projects, from technology development to branding strategy. She is a blogger for PsychologyToday.comopens in new window and a frequent expert source for the media on social media, technology and popular culture, including The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, HuffPost Live, PC World, Seventeen Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, “Good Morning America,” ABCnews.com, Toronto Sun, Education Week and USA Today.

Audrey Hamilton: As a podcast listener, you may already be integrated in the world of media technology, but psychologists are continuously trying to figure out how and why people use devices, like smartphones or activity trackers. These devices monitor our moods, our activity and they can spur more engagement with others. In this episode, we speak with one psychologist who applies psychological science to interactive and mobile media technology, an area of research that is constantly changing, as the platforms become more sophisticated and much more interactive. I’m Audrey Hamilton and this is “Speaking of Psychology.”

Pamela Rutledge is director of the Media Psychology Research Center and she teaches and designs media psychology courses at Fielding Graduate University. She is also active as a consultant, speaker and researcher on applying psychological science to interactive technology and social media. She is editor-in-chief of the online journal Media Psychology Review. Welcome, Dr. Rutledge.  

Pamela Rutledge: Oh, it’s a pleasure to be here. 

Audrey Hamilton: First of all, tell us a little bit about your area of expertise, which is media psychology. What does a media psychologist do and what do you do as director of the Media Psychology Research Center? 

Pamela Rutledge: Well, media psychology is fundamentally using the tools of psychology to think about media and technologies. So, it’s really using that in an applied way. And at the Media Psychology Research Center we work with a number of media projects applying the fundamentals of psychology to help companies and organizations, and even individuals, understand how to better design, develop and teach about media and technology. 

Audrey Hamilton: There’s a lot of interest in how new technologies are affecting our behavior. Steve here, one of the producers of the podcast – he wears his Fitbit every day. I see you have one as well. He competes with other people to get the greatest number of steps. In a study of one, this would seem to indicate he’s improving his health with this technology. Is this something psychologists are studying or using to monitor people’s behaviors and how so?

Pamela Rutledge: Yes it is. There’s a lot of research going on right now – what we call the “quantified self” where people are using wearable technologies to get information that they use to motivate themselves to make judgments about their performance. But a really critical part of this is the social connection. So there’s a lot of competition. I wear the Jawbone Up, not the Fitbit. But, my team includes my daughters and so we’re always comparing “where did you walk?” – “how much did you walk?” And it’s really fun to get a “yay, mom” after you’ve got done some exercising. 

Audrey Hamilton: What about tracking people’s moods? Stepping away from exercising, but to moods? Smartphones track people’s movements and some researchers at Northwestern University were able to show that people who moved less during the day were more depressed or could be more depressed. How do you think smartphones are going to change how we track or monitor people’s moods and mental health as we move forward? 

Pamela Rutledge: It won’t just be smartphones that are changing. I think that it’s going to be a lot more integration of technology. We have to remember that there really isn’t a separation between our mind and our body. So it makes perfect sense that we start tracking mood, in addition to our physical behavior. 

My colleague Dr. Jerri Lynn Hogg and I have just begun research with a product called Spire which measures your breath as a way of recording your stress level. And that’s integrated back into your steps and onto your phones so it gives you indicators of are you moving and are you breathing and your relative stress level. And that’s just one of many applications that I think are really at the forefront of these interesting applications that provide triggers to make behavior change.  

Audrey Hamilton: Do you think psychologists could use apps like these when looking for ways to help their clients? I don’t know if that’s anything that you study but I’m just curious as to where do you take this knowledge? 

Pamela Rutledge: Well, I think you take the knowledge a lot of ways. I mean, one is that it’s very individually empowering. So people have now a new tool in their own arsenal to make change on their own behalf. But it’s also a very effective way to work with clinicians, coaches and therapists. An application that I’ve been using is the heart lab – or HeartMath, rather, which allows you to measure your heart rate in conjunction with your breathing as a mechanism for getting better mind-body coherence. So, similar to meditation, but it’s a way of showing your therapist the track record that you’re keeping and she can then work with you on the mental triggers that are disrupting your thought patterns – causing you stress – causing you distress – and the things that actually improve that.  

Audrey Hamilton: You’ve been a media psychologist for a while. I’m wondering, with all of this new technology coming out (and it seems like it is coming out constantly) is it making your job more interesting or what you’re able to learn and use the technology? 

Pamela Rutledge: Oh, absolutely. It makes it fascinating and it also makes it just – I’m absolutely able to justify the purchase of any piece of technology at all because I just tell my husband “oh honey, I have to study this.” 

But sure, it does two things – one is that it keeps us very on the ball because we’re continually figuring out what are the affordances or the attributes of any particular piece of technology and how are we mapping that back to psychological theory? Because, as you know, it’s not really about the tools – it’s about human behavior and emotions and how we’re wired. And so, if we understand those fundamentals, then we have the ability to evaluate all of this new technology. The bad thing is, every semester I have to re-write my syllabuses because I need to keep the content up-to-date. 

Audrey Hamilton: Overall – and you hear this often in the media – there’s a sense that social media and emerging technologies are changing people, making them more narcissistic, self-involved. You said that they are making people more empathetic and responsible for other people’s well-being. Can you explain why you think that? Can you give some examples? 

Pamela Rutledge: I believe that people are becoming more empathetic because this connectivity and social media are allowing them to see other people globally in a way that they’ve never been able to see before. I know a lot of people are worried about things like narcissism, but I think that’s overstated. What is important is that people understand the benefits of technology and where they need to establish limits. 

You know, offline, we have all of these patterns of behavior that we know how to take care of ourselves, self-care. But, we now have to learn how to do this in this new environment. We have to extend our living space, so to speak, into the online arenas. So we have to learn how to set online boundaries. We have to learn how to respond to things. 

The Red Cross was able to raise $5 million within 24 hours after the Haitian earthquake. That’s an extraordinary amount of participation. Now, while some people may have referred to that as slacktivism, saying that they’re not really involved, the fact that people have that awareness – that they were willing to participate in that small bit – means that they’re going to be much more sensitive to future calls so that they’re aware of other people in need and they’ll be much more reliable to help. It also empowers the giver because now there are all of these kinds of ways where people can make a difference in very small ways. That sense of agency is going to make people much more willing to participate.

So I think this idea that everyone has become totally self-focused is exactly wrong. So, I think that we have a misconception of the dangers of technology. That’s not to say there aren’t problems. There are. It’s important to have training. But we don’t want to overstate the problems because we don’t want to miss the benefits because there’s tremendous upside. 

Audrey Hamilton: Well, Dr. Rutledge, thank you so much for joining us. This was a fascinating conversation. 

Pamela Rutledge: It’s my pleasure.

Audrey Hamilton: For more information on Dr. Rutledge’s work and to hear more episodes, please go to our website. With the American Psychological Association’s “Speaking of Psychology,” I’m Audrey Hamilton.