Media Richness Theory et al.

I think it's funny how what I'm seeing now more and more is that the PhD work I'm doing isn't leading to new or revolutionary ideas, but instead it just solidifies and names the ideas. 

Lately, I've been working on and discussing "media richness theory." This is the idea that all types of communication convey understanding to others and that compared to one another they make up a system. I believe it goes further than that in that greater media richness can lead to greater engagement. What I'm also finding is that in terms of VR, greater media richness leads to cognitive overload. 

What's this have to do with anything in my PhD or in life? WEll, I remember discussing this, media richness theory with a friend I used to chat to quite a bit. My thought was we needed more richness in our communication to have engagement and intrigue. We needed pictures, video, chat, email, calls, etc. etc. Why? Because otherwise, things go sour, they get boring. What happened? She didn't agree. The relationship soured. 

I proposed all of this before I knew what Media Richness Theory was. I knew inherently that itw as right to do, and why. I didn't have a name for it. The PhD just gave it a name. Same with virtual learning. I was doing that in 2010, but I just did it because it made sense. 

I'm finding more and more that non PhD things just make sense to do. Where as PhD things just take those things that make sense and provide a framework, a theory, and a name to it.