Interaction as a Social Process

 By  Akhmad Zamroni

Source: Foto Akhmad Zamroni

Everywhere, every day, people are preoccupied with various matters that require them to relate to each other. At home, parents advise their children to study hard or ask their parents for money to buy books. At the shop, while enjoying breakfast and hot coffee, people discuss the government's plan to increase the price of BBM (fuel oil). In the market, both sellers and buyers are involved in haggling over prices. In school the teacher assigns the students the task of having a discussion. In the company, managers exchange ideas to find a formula to increase work productivity. At the government office the head of the department instructs his subordinates to increase discipline. On the highway the police give signs to road users so that traffic will run smoothly. On the green field two soccer teams compete to score goals and beat each other. At the UN headquarters diplomats from all over the world are busy looking for solutions to create international peace.

That's human life, from then until now. As long as they still hold the title of social being, humans will always have a relationship or contact with each other. Normal humans cannot and cannot live alone. To maintain and preserve their existence as well as to continue life, humans will always communicate, mingle, and cooperate with each other.

As a part of society, you are certainly familiar with or, at least, able to witness, feel, and perceive the phenomenon. For every member of society (especially adults), this phenomenon of social life must be familiar. Communicating, socializing, or cooperating with others at various levels –– from the simplest to the most complex –– in fact it is done by every member of society, including those who are still classified as children.

The impossibility of humans to live fully alone and their difficulty not to have contact with others clearly show that humans cannot escape from their basic nature as social beings and find it difficult to avoid a phenomenon called interaction. Interaction will always accompany the movement of the life of social creatures called humans. Then, what is actually called interaction? How is the relationship between interaction and human life as social beings? What are the conditions for the interaction to occur? What and how are the forms of interaction common in human life?

As living beings, humans have a position that can be said to be "special" or "distinctive" compared to other living things on this earth. Because of certain traits or characteristics they have, humans are commonly referred to as social creatures. So, the position of man as a social being needs to be discussed first before we are more specific in discussing and exploring the problems of interaction and social processes of human life. The discussion of humans as social beings will greatly help us in understanding the various problems surrounding interactions in human life.