In Theorizing Interactivity’s Effects, S. Shyam Sundar shows not only that interactivity is an attribute of technology rather than of the media user, but that it has behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive effects as well. These ideas are explored as he investigates the role played by interactivity in initiating action, changing attitudes, and altering the nature of information processing.
Sundar argues that interactivity is an attribute of technology and not its users due to the various limitations that come from the perceptual approach when conducting research. Perceptual measures stress the “experience of interactivity” and therefore determination of interactivity is skills-based. Thus, the correlation between perceived interactivity and other variables is a reflection of the users rather than the technologies that are needed to be evaluated. In this way, perceived interactivity is most likely mixed up with perceived usability of the system. Sundar uses an example from message research to prove this idea. He explains that in message research, when they want to investigate the effects of suspense, they would use level of exposure to suspenseful stimuli as the independent variable, not the viewer’s perception of suspense as the predictor.
While speaking on the behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive effects interactivity has on its users, Sundar provides evidence of these in both positive and negative lights. In terms of positive effects of interactivity, he gives the example of technology providing animation, resulting in a better mood for the user. Although, when interactivity combines with a peripheral cue like animation to promote positive attitudes, an abundance of these cues may lead to over-stimulation and resulting negative evaluations. Another example Sundar gives his readers is that of pop-up ads. The social stigma that comes with pop-up ads signified both its effectiveness in tricking users to click on them, and its societal response to a technology that forces its users “to engage in interactions that they did not solicit” (387). Because users have to interact in order to close down the pop-up window, it makes these types of communications unwelcome.
Despite the fact that the experiential aspect of interactivity is not part of its definition, I still wonder after reading Sundar’s work, how is media experienced by different user groups across the world? Do we universally all interact the same way to these different types of technology?
After also having read this article, I found your response compelling as you did a great job outlining Sundar’s points. In regards to the question you posed at the end, I imagine that there are cultural differences in terms of the way in which we value and interact with technology, but I also believe there are likely universal experiences of technological interaction. In addition, because of the biological impacts of our interactions with technology (as Sundar pointed out), the baseline differences of the chemical balances in our brain are not the same (some outliers as well) and I would tend to believe that because of the differing chemical balances, people even from the same “user group” has different levels of reactivity with technology.
I really liked your critique of this reading, especially because I found it pretty easy to follow. Per your final question “Do we universally all interact the same way to these different types of technology?”, I wanted to bring up something that I read in a book (AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee) this summer, which discussed technology between the United States and China. The book explained that there are very fundamental differences between the way apps and websites are set up between the two countries, and those differences come from a plethora of studies that show how each nation looks at the screen. For example, according to Kai-Fu Lee, Americans tend to like to have everything laid out in a minimalistic fashion where they can then find the specific thing they came to look for, whereas Chinese people prefer everything to be on the screen at once, to reduce the time needed to find what they want. So it seems that people do tend to interact with technology differently.
I found the questions you raised were really interesting. As an international student, I have some insights on that. People from all over the world use totally different media; each country in Asia may have a popular social media from its own country. Even the same function social media may have very different settings among countries. For example, in Instagram, people post pictures and you can comment and like the pictures, and only the publisher would receive the notification. However, in WeChat, when people posted pictures and received interactions, all people who previously commented or liked the same pictures would receive the notification. That may lead some people only view the pictures, and leave without comments and likes. Some may choose to chat with the person instead of commenting below the photos. Different settings and schemes in social media would definitely affect people’s motivation and interactivity.