Interactive media

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A DVD-Video typically includes an interactive menu allowing the user to change settings or play additional content. Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans (DVD menu).jpg
A DVD-Video typically includes an interactive menu allowing the user to change settings or play additional content.

Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, moving image, animation, video and audio. Since its early conception, various forms of interactive media have emerged with impacts on educational and commercial markets. With the rise of decision-driven media, concerns surround the impacts of cybersecurity and societal distraction. [1]

Contents

Definition

Interactive media is a method of communication in which the output from the media comes from the input of the users. [2] [3] Interactive media works with the user's participation. The media still has the same purpose but the user's input adds interaction and brings interesting features to the system for better enjoyment.

Development

The analogue videodisc developed by NV Philips was the pioneering technology for interactive media. Additionally, there are several elements that encouraged the development of interactive media including the following:

All of the prior elements contributed in the development of the main hardware and software systems used in interactive media.

Terminology

Though the word media is plural, the term is often used as a singular noun.

Interactive media is related to the concepts interaction design, new media, interactivity, human computer interaction, cyberculture, digital culture, interactive design, and can include augmented reality and virtual reality.

An essential feature of interactivity is that it is mutual: user and machine each take an active role. Most interactive computing systems are for some human purpose and interact with humans in human contexts. [5]

Interactive media are an instance of a computational method influenced by the sciences of cybernetics, autopoiesis and system theories, and challenging notions of reason and cognition, perception and memory, emotions and affection.

Any form of interface between the end user/audience and the medium may be considered interactive. Interactive media is not limited to electronic media or digital media. Board games, pop-up books, flip books and constellation wheels are all examples of printer interactive media. Books with a simple table of contents or index may be considered interactive due to the non-linear control mechanism in the medium, but are usually considered non-interactive since the majority of the user experience is non-interactive reading. [6]

Advantages

Effects on learning

Interactive media is helpful in the four development dimensions in which young children learn: social and emotional, language development, cognitive and general knowledge, and approaches toward learning. Using computers and educational computer software in a learning environment helps children increase communication skills and their attitudes about learning. Children who use educational computer software are often found using more complex speech patterns and higher levels of verbal communication. A study found that basic interactive books that simply read a story aloud and highlighted words and phrases as they were spoken were beneficial for children with lower reading abilities. Children have different styles of learning, and interactive media helps children with visual, verbal, auditory, and tactile learning styles. [7]

Furthermore, studies conducted using interactive, immersive media (such as virtual reality) has proven effects on the educational impacts of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. [8] [9] Through the use of additional sensors and specialized equipment, immersive medias have been questioned on their effectiveness to include students who may be considered neurodivergent. Interactive media can often be considered as highly stimulating, which raised concerns for overstimulation and potential triggers of reaction for particular students. [10]

Interactive media has also been used under multiple professions to provide training opportunities, such as its use in medical training and education. [11]

Intuitive understanding

Interactive media makes technology more intuitive to use. Interactive products such as smartphones, iPad's/iPod's, interactive whiteboards and websites are all easy to use. The easy usage of these products encourages consumers to experiment with their products rather than reading instruction manuals. [12]

Relationships

Interactive media promotes dialogic communication. This form of communication allows senders and receivers to build long term trust and cooperation. This plays a critical role in building relationships. Organizations also use interactive media to go further than basic marketing and develop more positive behavioral relationships. [13] The use of interactive media, alongside immersive media, also has the additional benefit to providing further realism to creating relational bonds in virtual settings. Through the use of this technology, new types of relationships can be formed as well as strengthening preexisting ones. [14]

Disadvantages

Public safety and distraction

Interactive media has given way to new distractions which can lead to public safety issues. Digital distractions are heightened by the necessity for user input and response to media requests. [15]

Poor sleep habits

Smartphones are a prevalent form of interactive media, and their excessive use can lead to bedtime procrastination. [16] Mobile phone use that keeps individuals up at night causes adverse health effects such as fatigue and headaches. [17]

Influence on families

The introduction of interactive media has greatly affected the lives and inner workings of families, with many family activities having integrated with technology quite seamlessly, allowing both children and parents to adapt to it as they see fit. However, parents have also become increasingly worried about the impact that it will have on their family lives. This is not necessarily because they are opposed to technology, but because they fear that it will lessen the time that they get to spend with their children. Studies have shown that although interactive media is able to connect families together when they are unable to physically, the dependence on these media also continues to persist even when there are opportunities for family time, which often leads the adults to believe that it distracts children more than it benefits them. [18]

Types

Distributed interactive media

The media which allows several geographically remote users to interact synchronously with the media application/system is known as Distributed Interactive Media. Some common examples of this type of Media include Online Gaming, Distributed Virtual Environment, Whiteboards which are used for interactive conferences and many more. [19]

Commercial interactive media

Interactive medias assist in commercial ventures, such as those incorporating media using virtual and augmented technologies. Virtual tours is one demonstrated way in which interactive media is able to meet commercial needs and provide alternative revenue for business. [20] Studies show that through the use of immersive, interactive media business are expected greater marketing impacts. [21]

Informational interactive media

Media in which information is provided in interactive means. An example would be Geographic Information Systems, like those built upon the ArcGIS framework which provides users with the means to interact with locational data in various ways such as collecting, storing and manipulating. [22]

Examples

A couple of basic examples of interactive media are websites and mobile applications. Websites, especially social networking websites provide the interactive use of text and graphics to its users, who interact with each other in various ways such as chatting, posting a thought or picture and so forth. [23] The ImmersiveMe convention brings together those in the industry, displaying mass examples of interactive medias and their impacts such as those in the Digital Humanities space where interactive media was able to be used for research purposes. [24]

Technologies and implementation

Interactive media can be implemented using a variety of platforms and applications that use technology. Some examples include mobile platforms such as touch screen smartphones and tablets, as well as other interactive mediums that are created exclusively to solve a unique problem or set of problems. Interactive media is not limited to a professional environment, it can be used for any technology that responds to user actions. This can include the use of JavaScript and AJAX in web pages, but can also be used in programming languages or technology that has similar functionality.

One of the most recent innovations to use interactivity that solves a problem that individuals have on a daily basis is Delta Airlines's "Photon Shower". [25] This device was developed as a collaboration between Delta Airlines and Professor Russell Foster of Cambridge University. The device is designed to reduce the effect of jet lag on customers that often take long flights across time zones. The interactivity is evident because of how it solves this problem. By observing what time zones a person has crossed and matching those to the basic known sleep cycles of the individual, the machine is able to predict when a person's body is expecting light, and when it is expecting darkness. It then stimulates the individual with the appropriate light source variations for the time, as well as an instructional card to inform them of what times their body expects light and what times it expects darkness. Growth of interactive media continues to advance today, with the advent of more and more powerful machines the limit to what can be input and manipulated on a display in real time is become virtually non-existent. [26] [27] [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphical user interface</span> User interface allowing interaction through graphical icons and visual indicators

A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation. In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs, which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.

Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as writing, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to traditional mass media, such as printed material or audio recordings, which feature little to no interaction between users. Popular examples of multimedia include video podcasts, audio slideshows, and animated videos. Multimedia also contains the principles and application of effective interactive communication, such as the building blocks of software, hardware, and other technologies. The five main building blocks of multimedia are text, image, audio, video, and animation. The first building block of multimedia is the image, which dates back 15,000 to 10,000 B.C. with concrete evidence found in the Lascaux caves in France. The second building block of multimedia is writing, which was first scribed in stone or on clay tablets and was mostly about three things. Property, conquest, and religion. Writing was soon abstracted from visual images into symbols that represented the sounds we make with our mouths. Thanks to the Egyptians, writing was evolved and transferred from stone to Papyrus. A cheaper but more fragile canvas derived from strips of the papyrus root grown on the Nile River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality</span> Computer-simulated experience

Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment, education and business. VR is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum. As such, it is different from other digital visualization solutions, such as augmented virtuality and augmented reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augmented reality</span> View of the real world with computer-generated supplementary features

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, or destructive. As such, it is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer-mediated reality</span> Ability to manipulate ones perception of reality through the use of a computer

Computer-mediated reality refers to the ability to add to, subtract information from, or otherwise manipulate one's perception of reality through the use of a wearable computer or hand-held device such as a smartphone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interactivity</span> Interaction between users and computers

Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but most definitions are related to interaction between users and computers and other machines through a user interface. Interactivity can however also refer to interaction between people. It nevertheless usually refers to interaction between people and computers – and sometimes to interaction between computers – through software, hardware, and networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mixed reality</span> Merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments

Mixed reality (MR) is a term used to describe the merging of a real-world environment and a computer-generated one. Physical and virtual objects may co-exist in mixed reality environments and interact in real time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tangible user interface</span>

A tangible user interface (TUI) is a user interface in which a person interacts with digital information through the physical environment. The initial name was Graspable User Interface, which is no longer used. The purpose of TUI development is to empower collaboration, learning, and design by giving physical forms to digital information, thus taking advantage of the human ability to grasp and manipulate physical objects and materials.

Educational technology is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech," it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."

Cyberpsychology is a scientific inter-disciplinary domain that focuses on the psychological phenomena which emerge as a result of the human interaction with digital technology, particularly the Internet.

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a pedagogical approach wherein learning takes place via social interaction using a computer or through the Internet. This kind of learning is characterized by the sharing and construction of knowledge among participants using technology as their primary means of communication or as a common resource. CSCL can be implemented in online and classroom learning environments and can take place synchronously or asynchronously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immersion (virtual reality)</span> Perception of being physically present in a non-physical world

Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is the perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total environment.

Presence is a theoretical concept describing the extent to which media represent the world. Presence is further described by Matthew Lombard and Theresa Ditton as “an illusion that a mediated experience is not mediated." Today, it often considers the effect that people experience when they interact with a computer-mediated or computer-generated environment. The conceptualization of presence borrows from multiple fields including communication, computer science, psychology, science, engineering, philosophy, and the arts. The concept of presence accounts for a variety of computer applications and Web-based entertainment today that are developed on the fundamentals of the phenomenon, in order to give people the sense of, as Sheridan called it, “being there."

In computing, 3D interaction is a form of human-machine interaction where users are able to move and perform interaction in 3D space. Both human and machine process information where the physical position of elements in the 3D space is relevant.

Augmented learning is an on-demand learning technique where the environment adapts to the learner. By providing remediation on-demand, learners can gain greater understanding of a topic while stimulating discovery and learning. Technologies incorporating rich media and interaction have demonstrated the educational potential that scholars, teachers and students are embracing. Instead of focusing on memorization, the learner experiences an adaptive learning experience based upon the current context. The augmented content can be dynamically tailored to the learner's natural environment by displaying text, images, video or even playing audio. This additional information is commonly shown in a pop-up window for computer-based environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human–computer interaction</span> Academic discipline studying the relationship between computer systems and their users

Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design technologies that allow humans to interact with computers in novel ways. A device that allows interaction between human being and a computer is known as a "Human-computer Interface (HCI)".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile technology</span> Technology used for cellular communication

Mobile technology is the technology used for cellular communication. Mobile technology has evolved rapidly over the past few years. Since the start of this millennium, a standard mobile device has gone from being no more than a simple two-way pager to being a mobile phone, GPS navigation device, an embedded web browser and instant messaging client, and a handheld gaming console. Many experts believe that the future of computer technology rests in mobile computing with wireless networking. Mobile computing by way of tablet computers is becoming more popular. Tablets are available on the 3G and 4G networks.

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer application which allows users to experience immersive, three dimensional visual and audio simulations. According to Pinho (2004), virtual reality is characterized by immersion in the 3D world, interaction with virtual objects, and involvement in exploring the virtual environment. The feasibility of the virtual reality in education has been debated due to several obstacles such as affordability of VR software and hardware. The psychological effects of virtual reality are also a negative consideration. However, recent technological progress has made VR more viable and promise new learning models and styles for students. These facets of virtual reality have found applications within the primary education sphere in enhancing student learning, increasing engagement, and creating new opportunities for addressing learning preferences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality applications</span> Overview of the various applications that make use of virtual reality

Virtual reality applications are applications that make use of virtual reality (VR), an immersive sensory experience that digitally simulates a virtual environment. Applications have been developed in a variety of domains, such as education, architectural and urban design, digital marketing and activism, engineering and robotics, entertainment, virtual communities, fine arts, healthcare and clinical therapies, heritage and archaeology, occupational safety, social science and psychology.

Immersive learning is a learning method which students being immersed into a virtual dialogue, the feeling of presence is used as an evidence of getting immersed. The virtual dialogue can be created by two ways, the usage of virtual technics, and the narrative like reading a book. The motivations of using virtual reality (VR) for teaching contain: learning efficiency, time problems, physical inaccessibility, limits due to a dangerous situation and ethical problems.

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