INLS 500 - Human Information Interaction

Fall 2007

Interaction Diary Assignment 2 - Information Discovery

Due:  Thursday, October 11

The first diary assignment dealt with intentional interaction behavior. You described steps you followed as you sought information you needed. Sometimes information comes to us almost accidentally - we logon to the Internet to check the weather and get distracted by an interesting link to a source on a completely unrelated topic; we wait for a friend in a lobby and get distracted by informative notices on a bulletin board; we surf TV channels killing time before a show we want to watch, and get distracted by a documentary; or we are waiting in a doctor's office and pick up a magazine we normally do not read because something of interest caught our eyes. These are just a few examples of ways we "discover" information that we had not intentionally sought.  There will be many times in the course of the semester when you will find yourself "bumping" into information.  For this assignment, you will describe one of those events.

In a brief paper, 3 to 5 pages, describe an event where you discovered information that you were not looking for and learned something you may not have known. Your description should include information about the setting as well as the information itself that may have influenced your experience.  Try to analyze what caught your eye, what kept your interest, and why the experience worked for you. Was it your interest that led you to pursue the information, or was it the way the information was packaged or structured? You should also consider whether the diversion had negative as well as positive consequences for you. Advertisers, for example, invest resources in vying for your attention, but they are not always successful. Web sites and information systems, for example, should be designed to facilitate information discovery. Why are such experiences hard to duplicate? What are the barriers to information discovery? What facilitates it?

An example: I took a break from writing one Sunday to have my lunch. I turned on the television for a little entertainment while I ate and the movie Annie was showing. The film was near the end and Annie and Daddy Warbucks (played by Albert Finney) were doing a song-and-dance number. I had recently read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, a novel about creators of comic books. I turned off the television and went back to my computer to look up Little Orphan Annie, a comic strip (not a comic book) on which the play and movie were based. My grandmother told me once that Little Orphan Annie was my great-grandmother's favorite comic strip and that when it became a radio program, my great-grandmother listened regularly and would be most distressed about the miserable things that happened to Annie. I found detailed information very quickly and learned that the creator of the comic strip , Harold Gray, had originally created Annie as Otto, a male orphan, but the editor felt the little boy looked too much like a girl, so little orphan Otto became Annie. I learned quite a bit about Gray's political preferences and about the success of the comic strip through the 1920's, '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s until Gray's death in 1968. I also learned that at one time he killed off Daddy Warbucks. He was in despair when Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a 4th term, but he brought Warbucks back to life when Roosevelt died a few months later. I also learned that Ovaltine really did sponsor the Little Orphan Annie radio show - a fact that fans of the movie, A Christmas Story, will appreciate. So, I took a lunch break and was distracted by Albert Finney singing and dancing in a role about which I knew little.  I was curious about the comic strip, and I was further motivated by an enjoyable novel and my memory of childhood to return to my computer (already on, already connected) to do a quick search. My curiosity was easily sated, although it was a good half-hour distraction from the paper I was supposed to be writing. Had information been harder to find or had the computer been turned off, it is unlikely I would have pursued Daddy Warbucks very far - it just was not important enough. I learned a few things, but nothing of great consequence. It was an enjoyable diversion, however, and extended my experience of Chabon's novel and revived fond memories of my grandmother.

Note: If you are having difficulty finding a meaningful example, you may chose an alternative assignment  instead. (For those who are viewing a printed copy of this page, the link is http://ils.unc.edu/~barreau/interaction_diary_assignment_2b.htm).