3 Interactive examples...

topic of the day: it's all about COMMUNICATION...

yes. that's what interactivity is right? in its most simple form? so therefore... IF interactivity implies communication THEN communication = examples of interactivity... and with that premise in mind, awaaaaay we go...

Instant messaging (MSN)

ok this is going to be sooo over-used, and is extremely common. but it is a form of interaction between people, no? especially even more so with all those extra smiley-things and 'nudging', not to mention audio and webcams.... so i guess the only good example of this would be a conversation you have with a friend(s) over msn (and of course for purposes of confidentiality, what was discussed cannot be posted). however, like all interaction, all 3 steps are important. ever notice that in mass MSN chats there's always a loss of communication ie. not everyone gets to 'talk' and you can never quite keep up (thus poor quality in process and output). in other words though everyone is supposedly part of the conversation, not everyone in it is interacting with anyone else. this was particularly true for my CCA's MSN mass-chat sessions after Freshmen Orientation Camp ended. and ta-da! first example....


Correspondence via letters (snail-mail)

i guess that correspondence via letter-writing is a form of interactivity. not between the person and the letter, but between the people writing the letters. especially those involved in court cases (think letters between lawyers / law firms during divorce proceedings). and the example is this... my mum gets a letter from my dad via her lawyer. she reads it (input), thinks about it and gets pissed off (process) and then proceeds to react - via venting her frustration - and write a letter back to my dad via her lawyer (output). this cycle then repeats on my dad's end and voila! INTERACTION *cue applause*

monkeys, bananas and baths (experiment)

ok this sounds weird but i'm not sure if it qualifies as interaction or reaction. picture this:

*camera pans to banana on tray in front of a cage containing a monkey. enter researcher-kind of guy in white lab coat who proceeds to explain the following (in a very professional sounding tone none the less)...*

the abridged version: 1. monkey in cage. 2. monkey tries to get banana, monkey gets splashed with water. 3. after a while add new monkey to cage. 4. when any monkey tries to get banana, splash ALL monkeys with water. 5. repeat from step 3 onwards.

so yes before anyone attempts to kill me for this nonsense by the next lecture / tutorial, this experiment showed that when a new monkey was added to the cage after a certain point once the new monkey began to try and get a banana it would get beaten up by the others (who presumably didn't want to get splashed). eventually when all the original monkeys who were splashed were taken out of the cage, any new monkey introduced reached for the banana, the other monkeys which had been there longer would beat it up (at this point splashing of water no longer comes into play)... is this considered interaction between the monkeys? because if you consider interaction...

Monkey A sees Monkey B reaching for banana (input) -> Monkey A knows from conditioning what happens when you reach for banana. this counts as process right? - > Monkey A then proceeds to beat up Monkey B (output). so in reverse... Monkey B gets beaten up while reaching for banana (input) -> learns that reaching for banana = getting beaten up (process) -> don't reach for banana (and beat up anyone else who tries to reach for banana), which is output... thus, does this 2-way 3-step process count as interaction?