Posts tagged behavior
We'll See You on the Can
Via the New York Times:
A recently released survey of the mobile phone habits of Americans, going where few other surveys care to go, has found that 75 percent of the populace have used their mobile devices while on the toilet. Among those aged 28 to 35, the figure is 91 percent…
…It gets weirder. One-quarter of Americans say they will not go to the bathroom without their devices. While 63 percent have answered calls, 41 percent have called someone else while enthroned. Sixteen percent in the 28-to-35 group, the youngest sample surveyed, have made purchases there. A mere 8 percent of the oldest group have felt such retail urgency. Understandably, given their infrequent chances at privacy, people with children are more likely to talk on the phone than are the childless. Single people are far more likely than the mated to text.
![Orangutans, With iPads
The BBC writes of an experiment at the Milwaukee zoo where orangutans are given access to iPads so that they can use basic drawing apps, and kick back and watch some primate video.
The next goal is to wire the zoo and have the orangutans video chat with others elsewhere.
Via the BBC:
“Orangutans love looking at each other,” said [conservationist Richard] Zimmerman, adding that one of the apes, 31-year-old MJ, is a fan of David Attenborough programmes.
“The orangutans loved seeing videos of themselves - so there is a little vanity going on - and they like seeing videos of the orangutans who are in the other end of the enclosure.
“So if we incorporate cameras, they can watch each other.”
Other centres, zoos and sanctuaries are said to want to get involved “immediately” and are just waiting for more devices to become available.
“We’ve been limited to Milwaukee because we haven’t been able to get enough iPads,” Mr Zimmerman said.
“We’ve been waiting for the iPad 3 to come out to make the iPad 1 really obsolete, so we can pick up a few.
Image: An orangutan, with an iPad, via ExtremeTech](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx1ad6yt7e1qedj2ho1_400.jpg)
Orangutans, With iPads
The BBC writes of an experiment at the Milwaukee zoo where orangutans are given access to iPads so that they can use basic drawing apps, and kick back and watch some primate video.
The next goal is to wire the zoo and have the orangutans video chat with others elsewhere.
Via the BBC:
“Orangutans love looking at each other,” said [conservationist Richard] Zimmerman, adding that one of the apes, 31-year-old MJ, is a fan of David Attenborough programmes.
“The orangutans loved seeing videos of themselves - so there is a little vanity going on - and they like seeing videos of the orangutans who are in the other end of the enclosure.
“So if we incorporate cameras, they can watch each other.”
Other centres, zoos and sanctuaries are said to want to get involved “immediately” and are just waiting for more devices to become available.
“We’ve been limited to Milwaukee because we haven’t been able to get enough iPads,” Mr Zimmerman said.
“We’ve been waiting for the iPad 3 to come out to make the iPad 1 really obsolete, so we can pick up a few.
Image: An orangutan, with an iPad, via ExtremeTech
Why Remember When You Can Search
A new study out of Columbia University suggests that humans are offloading memory and recall to our internet devices. Simply, why bother remembering things when you can look it up when you actually need it?
From the study’s abstract:
The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger. No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can “Google” the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue. The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves.
