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Something You Should Know

Why We Love to Push Buttons & Why We All Need to Play Games

Something You Should Know

Mike Carruthers | OmniCastMedia

Education, Social Sciences, Self-improvement, Science, Health & Fitness

4.54.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We all have a sense of what romantic music is. But can that type of music really make you feel and act romantic? This episode begins with some interesting evidence on the power of music in the game of love. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100618112139.htm Look around you and notice all the buttons you could push. Buttons are everywhere. When you think about it, you can do almost anything with “just the push of a button.” And people like really pushing buttons – even when it is pointless. For example, pushing the elevator button after it is already lit or pushing the crosswalk button over and over to try to change the light. Buttons are a fairly recent invention and they have changed our world. Here to explain how and dive deep into the world of buttons is Rachel Plotnick. She’s an assistant professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University and author of Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (https://amzn.to/3xvIj5j) It seems we are wired to play games – board games, card games, sports, gambling – we love to play games. But why? Are games just a fun way to play – a distraction from work? Or are games doing something much more important than that? Joining me to reveal why humans need games and what they do for us is Kelly Clancy. She is a neuroscientist and physicist who has held research positions at MIT, Berkeley, University College London and she is author of the book, Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World (https://amzn.to/3W02BNR) How much do product reviews influence what you buy – or don’t buy? Do people really read them and pay attention to them? Listen as I reveal the results of a recent survey on the power of product reviews. https://www.cardrates.com/news/consumers-rely-on-online-reviews-study/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today on something you should know, can romantic music really make you be romantic?

0:08.0

Then pushing buttons, there's a button for everything and we love to push them. We often are very invested in placebo

0:16.6

buttons which is a button that doesn't actually do anything but it remains in place because people

0:21.4

like the idea of pushing a button.

0:23.0

Two quintessential examples of this might be the crosswalk button in a city or the door

0:28.2

close button on an elevator.

0:30.0

Also, how much do product reviews influence what people buy?

0:34.4

And games, people love to play games.

0:37.8

Maybe we need to play games.

0:39.8

Turns out that uncertainty is really, really compelling to the brain and games are all about uncertainty.

0:45.0

Games are in what ads were served, how we're paired on dating apps, how we're matched with jobs.

0:50.0

It's really important to understand how this impacts us because games kind of play us as well.

0:56.0

All this today on Something You Should Know, Something You Should Know.

1:03.4

Fascinating Intel, the world's top experts,

1:06.8

and practical advice you can use in your life.

1:10.1

Today, Something You Should Know

1:12.4

With Mike Carrothers.

1:15.0

Hi, welcome to something you should know,

1:17.0

and I want to start this episode by helping you

1:20.0

get a date if that's your goal. There's research out of France that shows that the

1:25.5

right kind of music can really help you get a date. A group of women were put in

1:32.0

one of two waiting rooms prior to an unreliable A group

...

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