I’m Just Stumbling – Media Meditation #2

Starting as early as in September I began hearing some of the guys in my dorm talk about stumbling. At first I was confused thinking they were discussing the difficulty they had walking home after a few too many drinks. After some more explaining I learned that StumbleUpon was a website. Many of the guys seemed to be hooked on it and told me that there were some days where they would spend hours laying in bed stumbling. Immediately I was intrigued, how could something been so entertaining?

After navigating the website for a while and doing some stumbling of my own, I learned more about this new method of procrastination. By signing up and checking boxes regarding personal interests StumbleUpon shows you websites that you would find interesting.

Urban Dictionary defines stumbling as:
“the act of bopping haphazardly around the internet by hitting the ‘stumble’ button on an installed ‘StumbleUpon.com’ toolbar added to your browser--the button will take you to a random site of interest to you (based on preferences you set up before) that you are lead to ‘stumble upon’ because others with similar interests liked it. "Stumbling" the internet is fast becoming an activity as understandable to computer regulars as what simple googling is known to be.
Yeah, ever since Roger downloaded his new SU toolbar, he's off stumbling for hours and tells all his friends googling for fun stuff can't hold a match to the great sites he finds when stumbling.”

YouTube provides "how-to" videos on getting started on StumbleUpon

The Brain
-Limbic: The limbic part of your brain is used to process the pictures and music that StumbleUpon delivers to you. Your emotions come into play by viewing the websites that you find appealing
-Neocortex: Many of the websites that you come across on StumbleUpon contain mind teasers or require some level of thinking. This is where thought and logic are used by way of the Neocortex

8 Shifts
-Technological Shift: By using websites such as StumbleUpon we are relying on technology and the internet to amuse us.
-Personal Shift: Have we really become so lazy and reliant on the internet that we are unable to have fun without it?

7 Principles
-Emotional Transfer: The point of StumbleUpon is to activate our emotions by showing websites that appeal to what we are interested in.
-Pacing: You are able to control the pacing by choosing how long you look at a certain website before choosing to be taken to another one.

29 Techniques of Persuasion
-Flattery: By only showing websites that you are interested it is hard not to like StumbleUpon.
-Bandwagon: All around Champlain College I hear students talking about what they “stumbled upon.”
-Simple Solutions: The website offers such an easy solution to boredom that it is hard not to try it out.
-Humor: Many of the websites that you visit contain funny images, videos, or stories.