Remember the classic behavioral reinforcement experiments where researchers got people to do almost anything by shaping their behaviors with smiles? The term “shaping” is probably best known from the experiments in which pigeons eventually performed pirouettes  on demand after every little step they took in the right direction was rewarded. After a great many rewarded steps in the right direction and a great many non-rewarded steps in the “wrong” directions” even ”musically challenged” animals like pigeons were able to do pirouettes.

Back to the smiling – by smiling in response to every little step in the right direction and not smiling at the “wrong” steps, researchers have been able to make job applicants in interview situations- unknowingly! – sit in a lotus position on the chair or even sit on the floor. Most students probably remember the experiments involving speakers, where the audience has been able to direct the speaker to stand in a corner, to whisper, sing, etc. If you’re attending a terribly boring seminar, try it…

I am no different from pigeons or job applicants, being a sucker for smiles, too. I received a lot of positive responses (for some reason, people seem to prefer to give feedback outside this blog. I have some ideas why they do so, back on that later…) on my themed week. So I’ll have another go. Starting tomorrow, it’s life-by-numbers week.

Also, I love 15-microseconds-of-famers. I’ve got a few more in my supply. I would really love to have even more fascinating examples from you! Please post any favorites you have! All good posts will be rewarded (maybe with a book?) 

The world of any is not completely healthy. Actually, society has never been completely healthy, and Seng-Hui Cho follows a century-old tradition. But only in our time of warp consumption, where we consume things the instant they are conceived and immediately forget about them as soon as something new appears (fractions of a second later), could this tradition produce a 15-microseconds-of-famer.

I am pretty confident that you are not sure who Seng-Hui Cho is. Or rather, was. He died, by his own hand, on April 16 of last year. Together with 32 other people, also dead by his hand. Maybe now you remember – the tragic Virginia Tech massacre.

Here is one of the about 600 clips from youtube. I know you have seen this before. Everybody has. Virtually every TV station in the world aired it, no online news or magazine site failed to link to it.

Massacres, mass murders, killing sprees – tragedies following mankind throughout the ages, gaining publicity longer back in history than the word publicity has existed. But never before have they so totally eclipsed everything else in the global news flow and never before have they vaporized so quickly into oblivion.

Killers have turned into icons before, just like Seng-Hui Cho did. But previously, those who became icons were rather charismatic, and their stardom lasted (like Charles Manson). Totally lacking charisma, Seng-Hui Cho reached rock star status: with regard to attention, in everybody’s mind, and in the form of admiration in a shockingly huge amount of people’s minds (this scary fact is another story, that I have much more detail on for another occasion) .

But only for 15 microseconds.

Such is the power of expectities- they may even spawn other celebrities.  Just ask Chris Crocker. If everybody just left expectity Britney Spears alone, no one would know of him. But people do not leave Britney alone, her being an expectity of magnitude  – seemingly ’til the day she dies (scroll down to an earlier post and refresh your memory…)

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Don’t be embarrassed, although the entire world has known of him, his 15 microseconds have run out by now. Revisit those microseconds with the clip below:

Within 24 hours of its posting (after Britney’s less than triumphant comeback at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas), the clip had attracted about 2 million viewers (soon thereafter, the number approached 100 million). Today, there are more than 4,600 youtube clips related to Chris Crocker, many of them parodies featuring anyone from John Doe to Seth Green and SpongeBob. 

For 15 microseconds, Joe Crocker was the most interesting person in the world, appearing in talk shows with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Ryan Seacrest, Howard Stern and many more, as well as being interviewed on CNN and Fox news to name but a few.

And yes, it kicked off a “music career”. Download the “trance mix” on itunes. Or watch one of the videos below.

For all she had ever done, Britney (nor any other music artist, for that matter) could not compete with Chris during his 15 microseconds of fame…

Listen to the song below:

Isn’t it great? It must be, it has been one of the highest ranked songs on the playlists of American radio stations in the past week. It has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times on Amie Street  and generated six figure profits the last few days. The song is far from new, but Ashley Alexandra Dupre’s (aka Kristen) music career sure is.

Maybe you have seen her on MySpace? Most likely you have. After all, more than five million people clicked their way to her space in less than 24 hours; the 24 hours after she became famous, the same 24 hours after the whole world learned that the name of the (now former) New York governor is Eliot Spitzer.

Unless you have been hiding out in the woods in the last few days (on second thought, in the world of any one can no longer hide out in the woods…), you know the story. Having struggled with a non-existing music career and unfulfilled dreams, 22 year-old Kristen provides Spitzer with her services. The instant the news spreads and her name flashes on computer screens, she becomes one of the most famous people on the planet, and one of the best-selling music artists across the globe right now.

Listen to the song again. Isn’t it great?

Blogarazzi and the truth of porn, two of my favorite topics. They are both symptoms of the Expectations society, where you are never better than your next performance. The truth of porn suggests that one should not give away things too quickly, and that one should never, ever, give everything. Blogarazzi (which I will soon get back to) are our modern version of soap operas - next operas: Always pointing toward the next post, “there’s more”, “stick around”, “press refresh!”

They are reactions to the fact that, whereas it has never been easier to become famous, it has never been more difficult to stay famous. In the world of any, it is almost impossible to stay in the limelight. Expectities succeed, but most people (and businesses) are doomed to 15 microseconds of fame. With the world at everyone’s sticky fingertips, anyone, anywhere, can do something more interesting, exciting, outrageous at anytime than what you just did. Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame existed in the old millennium, in the new millennium we are down to 15 microseconds of fame.

This week is a tribute to the 15-microseconds-of-famers, (ever so quickly forgotten) icons of our time!

Starting off – Eva Nazemson!

Remember her? I am sure the name rings a bell, although you’ve probably forgotten her already. Ringing a bell is actually on the spot. Hosting a night-time call-in word jumble show (which nobody watches), Ms. Nazemson managed to attract about ten million viewers world-wide and be invited to TV and radio talk shows, in Europe, America and Asia at almost the very instant she vomited live when talking to a caller. Some media experts even suggested that she would be up for a brilliant TV career (somehow, that career has failed to materialize yet).

Eva Nazemson is a nice 15-microseconds-of-famer, giving example of how anyone can attract the world’s attention with anything (even managing to project a brilliant future career in some experts’ minds) and be gone just as quickly.

Enjoy this youtube clip, one of 48.  If you have nothing better to do, challenge yourself to add all views of the clips together and count the millions.

Today it’s finally official: I am now a full professor.

That title, full professor, has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

It suggests that the professor is no half-figure, but a complete, whole entity. An almighty creature. A pretty scary picture….

It also suggests that the professor is full, and no longer hungry. It evokes a picture of someone who thinks of themselves as having seen and done it all, ready to roll over and die. Or, at least, kick back and relax.

I’ll try the full professor shoes on for size, tell me how it works. No more posts until after we have all celebrated Easter week. Meet you here Tuesday the 25th!

Meanwhile, this clip is worth feasting one’s eyes on for a week or so. See the resemblance?

My guess is, you did not lose any sleep pondering upon the question why Canadian web surfers become dissatisfied so much faster than the TV viewers in 22 countries across the globe (though Micke certainly had a good go at it, see his comment below).

An active medium, the web is so much more engaging and dynamic than the mostly passive TV medium. Hailed as the information super-highway around its conception in the mid-nineties, the web offers a world of information at your fingertips, at the speed of light (at least for those with fiber-optic cable connections) – or at the speed of your keyboard punches and mouse-clicks. Access to so much more, so much more appealing (as you delve further into your fantasies forming your own paths), so much faster than TV.

With all the opportunities at our fingertips, happiness is just a click and a microsecond away. And once we click our ways there, new opportunities present themselves and happiness moves yet another click away. Being online, we jump onto the fiercely trafficked happiness super-highway.

Some people’s view of this development can best be described in the words of AC/DC (incidentally, there are 4,890 versions of this song on Youtube – click ahead, knock yourself out…).

I say it’s quite the opposite, this is the road to salvation. More to come…  

If you are like most people, you do not like vegetables. Just like you, if you are like people in the British household panel, think that watching TV is one of the least joyful everyday activities.

See the connection?

You probably don’t like vegetables because of those traumatic childhood dinners when your parents forced the veggies down your throat with the mantra “they are good for you!” Which they are. They build your strength, just like a tough workout in the gym (which, incidentally, most people do not like either. Just like your parents at the dinner table, personal trainers, have a terrible mantra in the gym: ”the more pain, the greater the gain…”)

As it turns out, most things we do not like are good for us. Progression hurts, it requires effort, just like a carrot does not slide as smoothly down the throat as, say, an ice cream. And forcing down the carrot does not make you particularly satisfied, either. Which is a good thing, as satisfaction is a passive state, which does not help us to progress. Dissatisfaction, on the other hand, is an active state.

Watching TV for more than two and a half hours a day makes us less satisfied and more dissatisfied with life. In particular, it decreases our financial satisfaction and elevates our material aspirations. In other words, two and a half hours of TV watching provides a window onto the opportunities, products, and people (luscious men – “gimme a man after midnight” in the words of Abba) we have not yet seized but would like to. A window large enough for us to realize that we want them and we want the (financial) means to get them. 

In my creativity research, I have stumbled onto studies showing a significant, positive correlation between TV watching and IQ. In light of enhanced material aspirations and deteriorating satisfaction with the present, it seems plausible that TV contributes to our IQ, as we visualize our preferred new states and ways to get there.  

Two and a half hours of TV keeps us on our toes – it makes us smarter and gets us running to increase our living standard. Just like an apple a day keeps the doctor away, 2.5 hrs of TV a day keeps poverty away…

But why does it take Canadians less than an hour of online activity to get moving?

Did I manage to scare you away from logging on with yesterday’s post? Obviously not, since you are here. And that’s a good thing, as you would probably have turned on the TV instead. I know this because media consumption studies show that TV is both a primary complement and substitute to being online. Which may not be so strange, as sociocultural panel studies show that TV is a complement and substitute to virtually anything in our lives.

And I forgot to tell you that TV is bad for you, too. Not as bad as being online, as you have to stay in front of the TV set for a much longer time to become miserable, but bad just the same. A panel study covering 22 different countries provides a compelling pattern: watching TV for more than 2.5 hours a day reduces people’s life satisfaction. “No worries”, you might think, “I don’t watch TV for that long”. Then you are a strange creature, at least if you’re American or European – the former watch TV for more than four hours a day on average, the latter for more than three hours.

The British Household panel found that watching TV is actually one of the everyday activities that provide people with the least joy (I guess you’re curious which activity provides the most joy? Sex. Do you see the pattern?)   

Did yesterday’s Abba clip help you connect the dots? If not, here’s another clue:

I am sorry. It is Monday, beginning of the week and I am already ruining your life. Fresh back from the weekend, two days hopefully long away from computers, you visit my blog and – wham – your life goes down the drain.

At least, if you stay here for more than a half hour (or if my  blog seduces you to continue somewhere else online for that amount of time). And at least if you’re Canadian (are there any Canadian’s here? Give me a shout and I’ll help you).

A recent panel study of Canadian citizens’ well-being over time shows that being online for more than half an hour a day reduces a person’s well-being significantly, with up to as much as 40 percent.

Even after controlling for other factors, such as socioeconomic status, and events and activities people trade-off with their online activity, the trend remains.

So, if you want to stay happy (or rather, more positive, we’ll get back to the issue of happiness later), stay away from this blog. Or better yet, log off altogether!

Can you guess why logging on is detrimental? A clue: