In the sixth and final Research Unplugged discussion event of the fall season, Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of Penn State's Media Effects Research Laboratory S. Shyam Sundar led a lively discussion on the cultural implications of social media in his talk, titled "Tweeting, Digging and Blogging: Communication in the Age of Interactivity."

How did you first become interested in your specialty?

My background in engineering, journalism, psychology, communication all come together in my area of interest—user aspects of media interfaces.

What is the most exciting or fascinating part of your job?

The most exciting part of my job is that I teach and do research on new media, which, as the name implies, continue to be new all the time!

When you're not working, how do you spend your free time?

At the end of August, one can't help but notice those perennial signs of the changing seasons: the leaves begin to turn, the kids return to school, and the summer reality television shows—Jon & Kate Plus 8, America's Got Talent, and Whale Wars—give way to the fall

Since their conception in the late 1970s, video games have steadily increased in popularity. In 2004, the video-game industry raked in 10 billion dollars worldwide, generating more revenues than Hollywood. Polls indicate that today's children play anywhere from 9 to 20 hours of video games per week.

Parents may fret over these figures, but Edward Downs believes that video games can be a positive experience for kids, though pitfalls do exist.

Professor of communications Mary Beth Oliver—host of today's Research Unplugged conversation—took a moment to think before answering a question from an audience member in a standing-room-only crowd. The issue before her: How do we prevent young people from absorbing racist messages from the media?

Lights, camera, electrodes!

Electrodes?

Shyam Sundar Sethuraman, director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State, uses electrodes to monitor people's reactions to everything from download speed on the Internet to the size of a television screen to how seating affects enjoyment in a movie theater.

"Essentially, what we do is look at people's reactions to various stimuli," Sundar says. These stimuli include television, cable, Internet, laserdisc, and video sources.