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Perceived Positive and Negative Effects of Instant Messaging on Academic Writing

In the age of technology, does instant messaging enhance or hinder writing? A case study offers insights from a generation that’s never lived without the internet.

In the spring of 2021, I met with several high school directors. Each of them brought up the same concern: today’s high schoolers are struggling to obtain college-level writing skills. The directors blame this problem primarily on instant messaging (IM) and the internet, and they are unsure how to adjust their writing curriculum in order to meet this generation’s unique needs. This experience led me to wonder how the students themselves think IM has affected their writing. Perhaps with a clearer idea of young writers’ strengths and weaknesses, we can better address the confounding problems posed by the age of the internet.

THE RESEARCH

Jill Adams’s 2007 study “ Student Perceptions of the Impact of Instant Messaging on Academic Writing ” addresses this issue by investigating how students perceive IM’s influence on their writing. Adams examined middle school students’ written documents and conducted interviews with five students to determine how they viewed their writing strengths and weaknesses. Their responses suggest that there are distinct positive and negative effects of IM on academic writing.

“On my papers, I tend to have really bad organization—my thoughts are all spread out or they’re all in the same long paragraph.” Anonymous Student Participant

The perceived positive effects include the following:

Speed: Students noted that IM has greatly increased the speed at which they write.
Original ideas: Some students believed that IM helped them come up with original ideas and creative content in their academic writing.
Voice: Many participants thought their voice in writing was greatly improved by IM. One student said, “I used to have really bad voice in my papers. I haven’t had a teacher ask for better voice anymore” (under “Impact of Instant Messaging on writing products”).

The perceived negative effects of IM are as follows:

Lack of organization: Instant messages are typically written in one “paragraph” that can contain unrelated ideas. This unorganized style is also apparent in academic writing, as noted by one student: “On my papers, I tend to have really bad organization—my thoughts are all spread out or they’re all in the same long paragraph” (under “Impact of Instant Messaging on writing products”).
Rushing: Students’ increased writing speed is a double-edged sword. While it provides certain advantages, it can also lead to mistakes, lack of proper planning, and omission of important details.
Lack of proper mechanics: The study found that students’ papers had poor word choice, improper spelling and punctuation, and lack of capitalization. Students said they did not care about those mechanics when using IM.

THE IMPLICATIONS

These perceived positive and negative effects give us a glimpse at the advantages and disadvantages of the rising generation’s writers. In order to properly teach this generation how to improve their writing, educators must play to their strengths and assist them with their weaknesses. The middle school students of 2007 are also now the authors of today, so editors may need to more frequently help their authors with organizing thoughts, planning, including important details, and applying an appropriate mechanical style.

Individuals who grew up with instant messaging need not be an enigma; if we understand their unique advantages and disadvantages, we unlock the key to their writing success.

To learn more about how students perceive the effects of IM, read the full article:

Adams, Jill. 2007. “Student Perceptions of the Impact of Instant Messaging on Academic Writing.” Literacy Learning: The Middle Years 15 (2): 37–45. https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA166201100&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=13205692&p=AONE&sw=w

—Kennadie Halliday, Editing Research

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For more on technology’s impact on editing, check out Madeline Hill’s Editing Research article “ Online Editing: The Effects of Technology on Future Editors .”

Read Sheelah M. Sweeny’s (2011) article to learn more about teaching the IM generation how to improve their writing: “Writing for the Instant Messaging and Text Messaging Generation: Using New Literacies to Support Writing Instruction.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54 (2): 121–30. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.54.2.4 .

Main Idea: Identify Your Topic!

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Skylar Griego

This is an interesting topic. But I think the strengths and weaknesses outlined here are outdated at this point. The variety of instant communication methods available to us has exploded since 2007, and many people now text/IM with multiple messages styled like short paragraphs now. On top of that, we now have emojis, memes, and gifs as a mainstream form of communication. I would be very interested in an updated version of this study for both those students surveyed in 2007 and today’s middle schoolers.

Article Contents

The spread of instant messaging at work, social mediation of cmc use, work at kme: a high-tech firm, collaborative practices in computer-mediated work environments, conclusions, acknowledgments.

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Instant Messaging for Collaboration: a Case Study of a High-Tech Firm

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Anabel Quan-Haase, Joseph Cothrel, Barry Wellman, Instant Messaging for Collaboration: a Case Study of a High-Tech Firm, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 10, Issue 4, 1 July 2005, JCMC10413, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2005.tb00276.x

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This article examines uses of instant messaging (IM) in a high-tech firm to illustrate how knowledge workers use this new work tool to collaborate with co-workers. The objectives are 1) to identify the collaborative practices of individuals in mediated work environments by looking at uses of IM; 2) to discern what social processes are reflected in employees' use of IM; and 3) to investigate how three factors proposed by Erickson and Kellogg (2000) to support social processes—visibility, awareness and accountability—are used in an IM system. Questionnaire and interview data show that while IM leads to higher connectivity and new forms of collaboration, it also creates distance: employees use the mediated environment as a shield, distancing themselves from superiors. We use Erickson & Kellogg's ‘social translucence of technology’ framework to discuss the social consequences of working in a computer-mediated work environment.

Designing collaborative tools that will be effective for people in the workplace is an issue that lies at the heart of research in computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). While there have been significant economic investments made into developing effective work group systems, the results have been rather disappointing. Consequently, although a wide range of tools are available, many organizations continue to rely principally on email for communication in collaborative work, complemented by peer-to-peer communication and calendaring ( Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2002 ; Sillince, Macdonald, Lefang, & Frost, 1998 ). At the same time, the nature of communication is changing. Managers and professionals often communicate in fluid, multiple social networks rather than being solely embedded in a single work group ( Teigland, 2000 ). Hence, many Internet-based communication systems are open rather than confined to the work group. Moreover, it has become clear that CSCW cannot be developed or studied solely online. Successful development and deployment must take into account the social context of use, and must understand the situations in which users switch among different means of communication ( Nardi & O'Day, 1999 ).

In many organizations, employees are now collaborating via instant messaging (IM), either as a complement to email or as its replacement ( Handel & Herbsleb, 2002 ; Herbsleb, Atkins, Boyer, Handel, & Finholt, 2002 ; Poe, 2001 ). Often, the adoption of IM has been at the grassroots level, as workers carried over the habit from home or social settings. What makes IM popular among workers is that it adds speed and ease to workplace communication, and eliminates the time typically lost to “telephone tag” or wasted trips to the office of a coworker who is absent or otherwise occupied ( Handel & Herbsleb, 2002 ; Nardi, Whittaker, & Bradner, 2000 ). Because IM requires only an Internet connection and a small application loaded on a computer, it has often been under the radar of technical staff and management.

IM differs from email primarily in that its focus is on the immediate delivery of messages. To accomplish this goal, IM applications include: 1) a “pop-up” mechanism to display messages the moment they are received; 2) a visible list (“buddy list”) of other users, compiled by the user; and 3) a method for indicating when “buddies” are online and available to receive a message. IM applications also allow users to change parameters in the system in order to provide a more detailed view of their availability (e.g., in a meeting, out of the office, at lunch, away from desk). Other users are made aware of this status via automated replies from the user (e.g., “I'm out of the office now”) or by indications visible on the buddy list. They can then decide whether to contact the person later or send an email, voicemail, or other message that the recipient can respond to later.

Perhaps as a result of its use both at work and home, IM has garnered considerable media attention in the past few years ( Poe, 2001 ). However, few field studies of IM use exist. Not surprisingly, given the newness of the technology, several studies have focused on groups being introduced to IM for the first time ( Herbsleb et al., 2002 ; Isaacs, Walendowski, Whittaker, Schiano, & Kamm, 2002 ; Muller, Raven, Kogan, Millen, & Carey, 2003 ). Following a theme common to other investigations of CMC, other studies have focused on distributed groups, assuming that their need for CMC-enabled communication would be greater than that of co-located workers ( Handel & Herbsleb, 2002 ; Herbsleb et al., 2002 ; Nardi et al., 2000 ; O'Neill & Martin, 2003 ).

The technologies under study have varied. Some studies have focused on experimental or custom-built IM platforms ( Handel & Herbsleb, 2002 ; Isaacs et al., 2002 ). Only a few have looked at groups using the commercial IM products that represent the majority of IM use both inside and outside corporations today ( Muller et al., 2003 ; Nardi et al., 2000 ). Finally, existing studies have largely concerned themselves with the functions and character of IM interactions ( Handel & Herbsleb, 2002 ; Isaacs et al., 2002 ).

The Research Approach of this Article

This article examines how workers in a small, high-tech organization manage their IM use for the purpose of information exchange and collaboration. We compare the use of instant messaging to email and face-to-face (FTF)/telephone interactions. This allows us to identify the collaborative practices of individuals in mediated work environments by looking at uses of IM. Further, we analyze what social processes are reflected in employees' use of IM. Specifically, we use the social translucence of technology (STT) theory proposed by Thomas Erickson and Wendy Kellogg (2000) to evaluate the uses of IM at work and to examine new forms of collaboration.

The characteristics of the case we present differ in several ways from extant research on collaborative practices in computer-mediated work environments. First, the company under examination has employed IM extensively throughout the organization for more than three years. Hence, our research focuses on a technology that has been entrenched and embedded in the social and work processes of the organization. Second, the technology used by the organization, AOL Instant Messenger (otherwise known as AIM), was the most widely-used IM tool inside and outside the workplace, with 195 million users worldwide in 2004. Finally, while our study is similar to extant research in that it examines collaboration in computer-mediated work environments, it is different in that the focus is on the relationship between IM usage and social norms, structures, and networks, rather than on IM functions and interactions.

Many analysts see computer-mediated communication (CMC) as stimulating positive change in organizations because of its rapid diffusion, diminishing costs, and ease of use ( Jones, 1998 ; Rheingold, 2000 ). CMC can foster new forms of work by providing the opportunity for people with common interests to connect, overcoming limitations of space and time.

Yet, the positive effects of working in a cue-reduced environment are not without a cost. Studies have found that lean media were not adequate for transferring complex knowledge, whereas rich media, especially FTF, were much more adequate ( Daft, Lengel, & Trevino, 1987 ; Kiesler & Sproull, 1992 ). Similarly, Fish, Kraut, Root, and Rice (1992) found that media with low social presence were inadequate for solving complex problems or communicating socially difficult messages, where low social presence means diminished cues about the characteristics of a person (e.g., gender, age, power, and social status) and no information on a person's facial and bodily expressions. Features of the task at hand influence how communication technology is used. In addition, the cue-reduced characteristics of digital/textual communication intersect with the interpersonal and organizational salience of such attributes as power and status ( Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976 ; Sproull & Kiesler, 1991 ). Thus, the characteristics of media lead to specific choices about the use of different media.

What analysts often neglect when designing and analyzing CSCW systems is the fact that computer networks are social networks connecting people who share complex relationships among one another. Although CSCW takes place in the ether, its use is socially grounded. Therefore, analysis of IM use needs to move beyond the laboratory and into the real contexts of actual users. This is no mere rant about one research method's superiority, for as we shall show, a key reason why IM has become popular is that it provides cues about the status of interactants and their behaviors over time.

Social Translucence of Technology (STT)

The social translucence of technology (STT) framework compares computer-mediated work environments with real work environments. STT argues that when people interact in the physical world, they use social information to guide their actions. For example, Hillier (1996) recognized that one type of social information, visibility, facilitates informal interactions. His comparison of high-tech labs shows that open spaces lead to more frequent and spontaneous conversations between colleagues working on different teams, thus promoting cross-pollination of ideas and innovation. Therefore, socially translucent communication systems will be more effective if they provide social information about users ( Erickson & Kellogg, 2000 ).

According to Erickson and Kellogg (2000) , socially translucent systems have three characteristics:

Visibility : Movements and changes are used to guide interactions and exchanges.

Awareness : Knowing that others are present or available for communication. This knowledge can be used for starting communication, and it affects our communicative behaviors.

Accountability : Knowing that others know that they are there. This knowledge makes their behavior accountable. This is a relevant distinction because accountability and awareness do not co-occur in CMC as they do in offline communication.

As noted by Erickson and Kellogg (2000) , visibility is the characteristic that brings awareness and accountability into play. For example, BABBLE, a system developed at IBM, allows its users to see each other's availability and current status of activity, thus enabling and inviting spontaneous interactions ( Bradner, Kellogg, & Erickson, 1998 ). Bradner, et. al.'s study of the BABBLE system shows that visibility of employees' work activities promotes conversations, leading to higher performance. The interface and its ability to depict the social world facilitate information exchange.

Similarly, Bregman and Haythornthwaite (2003) identified visibility as a key element in online interaction. Focusing on interactions in distance learning environments, they treated visibility primarily within the context of how individuals present themselves online, and the means, methods, and opportunities they have for doing so. They found that, for distance learning students, how they were perceived—that is, how they were visible to others—was of major concern. The first step in becoming visible is to place a representation of the self into view. Speakers can become visible in a number of ways; Bregman and Haythornthwaite call this the repertoire for visibility . Speakers' decisions about the type of media used, the form of expression, the style, etc., are important components of their repertoire for visibility.

Social Networks at Work

Current theory emphasizes the value of informal social interactions for exchanging information, collaborating, and initiating spontaneous interactions ( Cross & Parker, 2004 ; Wellman, 1997 ). The STT framework suggests that systems that depict social cues facilitate information and social interactions, enhancing performance. While the STT framework makes an important contribution to the CSCW literature by examining social aspects of design, it also incorporates a number of implicit assumptions about communication in computer-mediated work environments that need examination: 1) Actors have the same roles; 2) Power relations do not influence communication; and 3) Social cues are beneficial in promoting exchanges. These assumptions are not unique to the STT framework but rather are characteristic of the CSCW literature in general.

In this article, we use a social network perspective to expand on the STT framework and examine the assumptions discussed above. Social network analysis focuses on patterns of relationships between actors, emphasizing the influence of relationships on communication ( Scott, 1991 ; Wasserman & Faust, 1994 ; Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988 ). It provides a theoretical, methodological, and substantive basis for extending CSCW research and development beyond its current individualistic approach, which treats “people as if they were socially disembodied beings without positions in social systems” ( Haythornthwaite & Wellman, 1998 , p. 1101). It points out that different types of ties link people and that each type of tie requires them to communicate differently. This makes it relevant and timely to examine the types of ties linking people and how these ties influence information exchange and collaboration in computer-mediated work environments ( Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1997 ).

The organization in this study, which we refer to as KME, is a software and services company in the high-technology industry. KME's products and services enable its customers to implement online collaboration among clients, employees, or partners. KME's customers include Fortune 500 companies. The company operates in a fast-changing area and thus needs to be constantly developing and fine-tuning products and services to meet customer needs and remain competitive. This is the case in both the product side of the business, where new software products need to be designed, and on the services side, where processes and practices are not yet well-established in the industry.

Data Collection

KME has 80 employees. We selected 28 employees for our sample, drawn from two groups: software development and client services. These two groups were selected because they had existed as functional groups for at least one year and the tasks accomplished within each group are interrelated and fairly homogeneous. Hence, we expected to find stable patterns of communication and technology use.

Of the 28 employees selected, 27 completed the questionnaire, yielding a 96% response rate. 16 employees from the client services group and 11 employees from the software development group participated in the study. In total, there were eight women (30%) and 19 men (70%). The duration of employment at the organization ranged from 5 to 43 months with a mean of 27 months. The education of respondents was distributed fairly evenly among high school graduates, university graduates and those with graduate degrees.

The numerical data were supplemented by in-depth interviews conducted by Quan-Haase with a sub-sample of 10 employees, and observations of daily work practices (see below). Participation in the interviews and observations was voluntary.

Each interview lasted about 45 minutes. Interviewees comprised employees from a range of positions and roles. Semi-structured interviews provided flexibility to follow important leads while covering the same set of questions in all interviews. Transcribed interviews were sent to interviewees for review and approval. To guarantee the confidentiality of interviewees, pseudonyms are used throughout our research reports.

Our analysis is principally based on questions in the interviews about the use of media. The purpose of these questions was to understand participants' personal media use and unique media profiles, including what media participants believe are appropriate for communicating with different types of communication partners and for communicating different types of messages. This approach allowed us to examine the social context of media use.

Specifically, participants were asked what type of media they use on a daily basis to communicate with colleagues inside and outside KME. They were also asked about each medium's relevance for their work, in terms of frequency of use and types of tasks performed. To obtain more detailed information on media use, we also asked participants what aspects of each medium they perceived as most useful, and why. In addition, participants were asked to report what type of medium they thought of as optimal for specific kinds of communication and information searches, and to discuss the characteristics of the medium that made it the best choice. Participants were also asked to report specific instances that were representative of their use of various media.

The interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and imported into NVIVO software, a text analysis package that is specifically designed for the analysis of interviews ( Richards, 1999 ). We followed Anselm Strauss' grounded theory when using NVIVO to code the interviews, developing themes through coding (1987; also see Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ). We discuss here only the themes that relate to media use and the maintenance of community.

Quan-Haase also observed full-day work practices to see how people handle CMC and how they fit CMC into their relationships and communication. Over one week, she observed all of the 10 interviewed employees, spending one full day with each of these individuals.

The one-on-one observations started at 9:00 AM and finished when the employee left the office (at approximately 4:30 PM). All FTF and online interactions were observed and recorded, including email, instant messaging, FTF, and phone exchanges. The start and end time, duration, and content of interaction were recorded. Although participants were given the opportunity to conduct private exchanges, no one did.

The analytic framework employed for the observations was a combination of grounded theory and social network analysis. Notes were taken on a daily basis and behaviors were recorded in a time diary. The notes were then coded and themes were developed in the same grounded theory manner as with interviews. Social network analysis guided the observations by focusing our attention on social relationships and their influence on the choice and use of media (for more details, see Quan-Haase & Wellman, 2004 , 2005 ).

Collaborative Practices at KME

Collaboration abounds at KME. Employees share best practices and engage in joint problem-solving. Collaboration in this technology-intensive firm takes place both FTF and via CMC. We asked participants in the questionnaire to indicate how often they used each of three media (FTF/phone, email, and IM) to communicate at each of three distances (work group, intra-organization, and extra-organization). The scale used to measure frequencies ranged from 1=“never” to 7=“daily.” For the purpose of the present analysis, the original 7-point scale was transformed into days per year: “never”= 0; “a few times a year”= 5; 1/month = 12; “1/week”= 52; “several times a week”= 130; “1/day and several times a day”= 365. Table 2 shows the mean frequency of use (standardized into days per year) of FTF and telephone, email, and IM for within group, intra-organizational, and extra-organizational communication.

Communication practices at KME: days per year and percentages of communications media

Communication within the group relies more on email and IM than on FTF, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all intra-group communications. Nevertheless, because of physical propinquity, the highest frequency of contact within the work group is FTF/phone.

Intra-organizational communication relies even more on CMC: Email and IM are each used more than twice as often as FTF and the telephone. Email is preferred even more for extra-organizational communication, accounting for about half of all such communication, with IM accounting for about one-third. Both social distance—IM is a more informal medium—and incompatible IM systems limit its use in comparison to email. Where the daily use of email extra-organizationally is one-half of intra-organizational use, the daily use of IM extra-organizationally drops to one-third of intra-organizational use. Moreover, because KME's clientele and supply chain are national and international rather than local, there is little FTF extra-organizational communication.

While we often think of CMC as primarily aiding communication at a distance by bridging time and space constraints, the primary use of email and IM at KME is for contact within the work group. About half (52%) of all IM and email (49%) communications are within the group. This high use of CMC occurs even though the employees work in the same building. The two groups occupy relatively small, densely organized, open-plan spaces on two floors of a small, three-story office building. Each group is located together on a different floor. The size and configuration of their workspaces encourage FTF and telephone contact rather than online interaction. Nevertheless, employees in this co-located setting access human sources primarily via CMC.

Informed by our findings at KME, we introduce the term local virtualities 1 to describe physically bounded places where people communicate via computer-mediated means, creating dense networks of collaboration. The fact that people are not interacting visibly in public spaces does not mean that they are isolated. They go online to send and receive emails, and they use IM to talk with colleagues. This finding is contrary to theories of network and virtual organizations that argue that CMC creates sparsely knit, boundary-spanning structures ( Monge & Contractor, 1997 , 2003 ). The fact that KME's CMC has created local networks of collaboration suggests that CMC can lead to new and unexpected forms of interaction and community that blend both local and distant communication.

Collaborative Practices in IM

In this section, we describe how employees at KME manage their IM systems on a daily basis, how IM promotes collaboration, and how new forms of collaboration emerge through the use of IM. Although email is used as much as IM for group and organizational communication at KME, in this article we focus on the less-frequently studied use of IM. Our findings are in accord with previous studies ( Nardi et al., 2000 ) that have found that employees use IM to exchange information; pose quick questions and clarifications; arrange and coordinate FTF and telephone meetings, both formal and impromptu; conduct simultaneous conversations over multiple media; and solicit immediate responses. We also found that IM speeds up the exchange of information and creates new forms of collaboration among employees.

When employees arrive at their workstations in the morning, the first thing they do is log on to the IM system. The IM system then displays the online presence of the employee to all other members of the organization who are also logged on to the system. Although KME has no explicit norms around collaboration, employees implicitly understand that those who are physically present at KME are expected to be logged on.

Employees perceive being logged on to the IM system as providing them with opportunities for communication. Even when employees are not at their desks, but at a meeting or out for lunch, they continue to be logged on to the system. In those cases, the system then changes their status from available to idle. If the employee chooses, the system also replies to incoming IMs with a customized message, such as “out of the office,”“in a meeting,” or “right back.” This information is important because it gives other employees more detailed information about each other's availability, allowing them to estimate when colleagues will be available for consultation. Availability information is particularly crucial for KME in that most projects are collaborative and the input of other employees is often central to completing a task.

Most collaboration via IM consists of asking questions about specific aspects of work. The questions often involve clarification or codified knowledge. Most of these informal collaborations take place one-on-one rather than in groups. IM is used most commonly for one-on-one exchanges in which an individual contacts another individual to discuss needed information. It is also used, to a more limited extent, for in-depth problem solving, where one person helps another make sense of a problem and think through various strategies to find a solution. In other instances, help consists of referrals to others who can provide answers or help solve problems.

Through information about colleagues' availability, opportunities for interaction open up. In the framework of social translucence, information availability provides a social affordance that makes others aware of the possibility for collaboration. One employee expressed how the system allowed them to ask others for help: “I see that they are online, I need an answer now, I need to talk to them now, I will ping them.” Furthermore, at KME, IM not only provides opportunities to collaborate; it also plays a role in the collaborative process. As one programmer reported, employees perceive IM as a principal way of connecting with each other: “I just know that if you call or send an IM, you will get a faster response than email.”

IM fundamentally affects the nature of collaboration at KME. It allows employees to ask for advice on demand. When a problem is difficult or demands expertise in another area, employees reach out to their colleagues for help. This occurs on an ongoing basis, creating a culture where most problems are solved by a network of people drawn into the problem-solving process whenever necessary. This new form of collaboration facilitated by IM is in synch with the notion of an “active social network,” in which the only relationships active at any time are those useful for the particular task at hand. It saves time and effort on the part of other colleagues, who can work on their own projects and are only asked to participate when needed. Unlike traditional stable work groups, KME employees are forever reconstituting their active ties to deal with issues at hand. Of course, such reconstitution is not random: Over time, people develop comfortable working relationships through prior collaboration and socializing. One employee described how IM is used to obtain answers quickly, on demand:

I use IM a lot. IM is great if you have one question that you just need an answer to. When you need to explain something in detail—an outline, kind of a business case for doing something, or for getting somebody to take action—email is the best.

Implicit norms at KME dictate that IM takes priority over other media. It even takes precedence over FTF, despite the more abundant media cues present in FTF. Employees know that others rely on them to respond quickly. Our observations discovered that as soon as an IM message appeared on someone's screen, they would glance over and read the message. In almost every case, they immediately responded, either with a substantive reply or with a short reply indicating that they received the message and would provide a full response later. As part of the culture at KME, people feel compelled to reply, even if it is only to say that they are in a meeting and will respond later.

The precedence of IM over other forms of communication may be a result of IM's functionality, in which a pop-up window automatically appears on the screen when an IM message is received. In this respect, IM is different from email, which requires the user to launch the program in order to read or send messages. As a result, an IM cannot be ignored as easily as an email. At KME, this difference influences message-sending as well as message-responding. Senders recognize IM as the best medium when timeliness is crucial. Email is used when the message is less urgent.

Employees use FTF/phone interactions less often, and perhaps differently, because they perceive them to be more disruptive than IM to their colleagues' work process. Unlike a FTF/phone interaction, users can choose to reply substantively at a later time, or, in rare cases, not at all—choices that could be difficult or awkward in a FTF setting. IM thus occupies a useful niche within the range of communication media available to employees: less interruptive than a face-to-face interaction or phone call, but offering a greater potential than email for obtaining an immediate response.

Collaboration at KME occurs in an “always-on” mode ( Gray et al., 2003 ; Quan-Haase & Wellman, 2000 ) because employees spent most of their time working at a networked computer. Communication occurs almost simultaneously through multiple media, rather than sequentially. For example, workers answer an IM while having a conversation. Employees do not switch between media and people to communicate, but use various media simultaneously to interact with different people.

In sum, the always-on mode allows employees to be aware of one another: 1) when someone logs on at the beginning of the day or logs out when they leave work; 2) when someone is away from their desk; and 3) when someone is busy. Communication practices at KME reflect a shift from the traditional way of working, where communication usually occurs outside the regular workflow. Because work at KME is conducted primarily online, communication occurs simultaneously with other tasks. Workers treat IM as simply another task within a multitasking work environment. However, as will be discussed below, this is not to suggest that adoption or adaptation is easy for all workers (for a more general discussion, see also Quan-Haase & Wellman, 2000 ).

Social Processes in the Use of IM

We noted earlier that IM is an important means of collaboration at KME. IM provides employees with an alternative form of asking for help, solving problems, and exchanging information. However, to understand fully the use of IM for collaboration at KME, it is important also to examine characteristics of the application and how these characteristics interact with social factors. We use a combination of the social translucence of technology (STT) framework ( Erickson & Kellogg, 2000 ) and social network analysis to describe how social processes play a role in the use of IM.

Characteristics of Actors' Relationships

Through its ability to convey some awareness of a person's availability, IM creates a sense of connectedness ( Nardi et al., 2000 ). Most participants at KME see visibility as a positive feature of the system; they feel that it is important to be able to see if colleagues and friends are online. However, many do not perceive visibility to be a positive feature in all contexts: Its value depends on the relationship, especially the closeness of the relationship, and the interdependency of tasks.

Close relationships.

If two individuals share a friendship relationship, they feel comfortable using availability information to contact each other. One KME worker describes such a relationship this way:

I enjoy communicating with him—I can say: “What is going on?” and “by the way I have this technical question.” Whereas other people I wouldn't want to IM because I don't have that kind of relationship with them. Unless it was really important, then I would, but I would be less likely to IM because I would not want to disturb them without a real excuse.

Thus, although awareness information is available to everyone on the system, it may have greater utility for those in a close relationship.

This characteristic is related to the limited capability of current IM systems to display more detailed information on availability. Although IM systems attempt to accommodate this need with icons or customized messages (e.g., “I'm on a conference call”), such messages cannot convey the many nuances of availability that exist in the workplace (e.g., “I'm available to others, but not to you”). As a result, people are not fully aware of whether it is convenient to contact another person. Clearly, eliminating one barrier (lack of awareness) does not eliminate other barriers (social, hierarchical) that may exist to the free flow of communication.

Task interdependency.

When two individuals are working on the same project, they feel comfortable asking each other questions via IM. In other words, there is a recognition that, when work tasks are interdependent, input is often required in order for individuals to be able to continue their work. IM in this case breaks down social barriers and allows individuals to ask questions and tap into each other's knowledge. Therefore, being able to monitor others' availability is useful for people working interdependently.

Sense of Community in Instant Messaging

IM supports one-to-one communication (user to user), one-to-many communication (user to multiple users), and many-to-many communication (where a user can initiate a session in which all invitees can interact with one another). Many-to-many communication can foster a sense of community among participants, since users become more aware of one another and their opinions, understandings, likes, and dislikes ( Nardi et al., 2000 ; Rheingold, 2000 ). With features such as buddy lists and presence indication, IM extends this awareness to patterns of behavior, allowing users to become more conscious of—and potentially more involved with—the dynamics of their groups and social networks.

IM's community-reinforcing potential occurs within a user-centric context ( Alvestrand, 2002 ). Only those individuals who are added to the buddy list become part of a user's community. At KME, employees typically download a buddy list consisting of all employees of the company and install that list on their computer. Hence, the system creates higher awareness of others' availability throughout the company. However, employees are free to add or delete names from their list, and to create categories to make close colleagues more visible and others less so. Our findings showed that users are usually aware only of the availability of their friends and colleagues who work on interdependent projects. Awareness is strongly influenced by social relationships among IM users, and data on presence or availability alone does not create a sense of community with others.

IM does not always create greater connectivity. KME employees also see IM as a useful tool because it creates distance between themselves and their superiors. When they have to deal with difficult decisions or discuss sensitive topics where they know that they may disagree with their superiors, they often prefer to communicate via IM rather than FTF. The reason is that IM allows them to reflect on their superior's opinions and provides them with time to think about their own reactions. IM in this case provides a barrier between communicators, albeit a barrier that has positive benefits for employees.

Organizational Control via IM

While awareness can make interactions easier and more efficient, it can also create the potential for control where users are not equal in status or power. Because of the KME norm to log on to the IM system upon arrival at the office, everyone knows who has arrived and is available for contact. People have flexible work hours, especially at higher levels in the organization, and work hours are not explicitly monitored or controlled. Nonetheless, while IM is not explicitly used for control at KME, the fact that the system provides the potential for accountability makes some employees uncomfortable.

One functional aspect of the IM system used by KME is particularly important. The user name appears in black if the person is actively typing on the keyboard, and becomes shaded once the user stops for more than a couple of minutes. (Users can configure the time interval or disable this feature altogether, although it is not clear that all employees know this or feel their superior would approve.) In this way, the system shows not only if the person is present at his or her desk, but also if they are using the keyboard. Some employees indicated that managers could use keyboard activity as an indicator of work being performed and expressed concern about this as an abridgement of their privacy or a mechanism for control. One of the managers interviewed said that the system allowed her to check who was in the office (and, by extension, who was out of the office). Accordingly, employees reported that they would log on specifically to make sure that others saw that they were at the office. Thus, the fact that the system creates visibility means that it also creates accountability and a means for monitoring.

Another form of accountability is that employees feel compelled to reply to messages because as receivers they know that the senders are aware that they have received the messages. Thus, the awareness of others' availability leads to expectations in the sender about how long it should take the recipient to reply. If a recipient does not reply promptly, he or she may be interpreted by the requestor as evidencing a lack of respect or concern for the requestor's needs.

To avoid misunderstandings, users who are unavailable to respond often activate the automatic reply feature within IM. This feature sends one of several standard messages, or a message created by the user, to indicate that the user is not available. This feature is often used to negotiate accountability:

If I know I am going to be busy or I need some time to concentrate on an issue, I turn one of the following messages on: “I am on the phone, get back right away,” or, “There is someone in the office, will email when free.” One of my colleagues uses “Of course I am not here now.”

People feel accountable to respond to the messages that they receive. In most cases, messages are replied to quickly: within one minute. Even during FTF meetings, workers monitor their computer screens and, if an important IM pops up, they reply while continuing their FTF conversation.

I just know that if you call or send an IM, you will get a faster response than email. Although sometimes I have to resend them, like “HELLO.” And they say: “I don't remember getting this.”

The downside of social translucence in IM is that a user may not always want to convey social information about him- or herself. We observed at least three situations in which workers did not want their social information to be displayed. First, employees working under time pressures often did not want their availability information displayed because this meant others could interrupt them. Second, employees often wanted to be available to a sub-group of employees, but not to all employees—at least not all the time. Third, if employees were working on a difficult problem, they did not want to be interrupted. Many problems require full attention and employees felt in these cases that IM distracted them from the task at hand.

When workers do not want their social information displayed, they sometimes engage in subversive strategies. Alice, for example, did not log on when she had a pressing deadline. Others leave their computers and IM application running 24 hours a day, to eliminate the logging on/off activity that could be used by others for control purposes. In the first case, a worker who is present appears to be absent; in the second, a worker who may be absent appears to be present. These subversive uses of technology are in accord with social constructivist views that emphasize the distinct uses of technology ( Bijker, Hughes, & Pinch, 1999 ; Markus & Keil, 1994 ). Therefore, while the system sometimes provides more social information than users may want to provide, it also provides more flexibility than is available in real physical settings. In real physical settings, one cannot easily deceive others about one's presence or absence. The IM system provides occasion for both disclosure and concealment.

Visibility information in IM is limited to a person's online status. The system does not convey information about what the user is doing, with whom the user is currently engaged, etc. While future systems could convey these types of information, it is unclear what their social consequences are and how they would be received by users, especially considering the potential overrun of privacy boundaries ( Gray et al., 2003 ).

Status Relationships and IM

A person's status within the hierarchy of the organization plays a key role in how their messages are replied to. For example, Leonard, a senior manager, received two IM requests during our interview. When a message popped up on the screen, Leonard glanced over quickly and read it. Both times he excused himself and initiated an exchange that lasted for 2-3 minutes. When asked what had happened, he replied: “I usually do not answer messages while I am engaged in a FTF meeting unless they are short questions or are urgent.” When asked who had sent the message, he said that it was from his superior. We noticed similar reactions from other interviewees. As soon as an IM message appeared on their screen, they would glance over and read the message. As part of the culture at KME, people feel compelled to reply, even if it is just to indicate that they are in a meeting and will get back to the request later. Clearly, IM often comes before FTF, despite the more abundant social cues present in FTF. With IM, the status of the communicator and the urgency of the message can be more compelling than the physical presence of someone FTF.

One worker reported that he preferred IM because it gave him social distance from his superior. This distance was afforded by the absence of social cues in IM. Although the lack of cues in CMC is often seen as inhibiting communication, here it is perceived as positive and used strategically.

Instant Messaging as a Dyadic Process

There are clear variations in how people communicate via IM, suggesting that IM use is in large part a dyadic process. Over time, people develop a good understanding of each other's media preferences and user habits. A programmer reports on her understanding of her boss's use of IM:

I know that my boss prefers to be reached over the phone because he finds IM disturbing. I prefer IM, but if I know that it is going to be a longer message I will pick up the phone and call him. With everyone else I just send an IM message. It is so easy and fast. I know they will get it right away.

People use the media that their communication partners prefer. Besides having a good understanding of individual preferences in media use, people also know the best way to reach particular people.

Local Virtualities

We have found that workers at KME rely heavily on CMC for communication both within and outside the organization. In accord with previous studies on the uses of IM at work, we found that IM is used extensively to exchange work-related messages, coordinate and arrange meetings, and inquire about colleagues' availability for discussion. This corroborates Handel and Herbsleb's (2002) finding that IM is largely used for work-related exchanges, while non-work-related exchanges are secondary.

By focusing on the use of IM in a physically co-located group, our study questions the assumption made in the literature that IM is exclusively used, and useful, for work in distributed teams. Further, we show that, at KME, IM is used as much for internal communication as for external communication. We coined the term local virtuality to describe these new forms of work, where co-located workers using IM for communication create dense networks of information exchange ( Quan-Haase & Cothrel, 2003 ).

Furthermore, our results show that IM not only creates higher connectivity and a sense of community, but in some cases also functions as a barrier. Employees use IM in part as a way to create distance between them and their superiors. This is particularly useful when difficult decisions have to be made or sensitive topics discussed.

Social Translucence as Design Principle

This case study of IM in work environments supports the framework of STT and shows how visibility, awareness, and accountability can be used to evaluate the uses of IM at work. The study finds that people use availability information to coordinate tasks, exchange information, and create social links. Furthermore, people negotiate their availability through IM by manipulating their availability status on the system. The availability of employees depends on the complexity of tasks they are currently engaged in and on how busy they are. Yet, as shown in Figure 1 , declarations of availability and responsiveness to IM messages also depend on the relative status and power of the communicators.

Social design principles in IM systems

The availability information in IM also provides a sense of connectedness, bringing people together. This is in accord with other CSCW findings showing that it is not informal communication that seems to be responsible for the success of teams, but specifically opportunities for problem-oriented and unplanned, spontaneous interactions that allow people to take advantage of the collective knowledge available in the team ( Hinds & Kiesler, 2002 ).

Far from being limited to communication within work groups, IM facilitates many “personal” online communities at KME. It is used selectively to communicate with certain peers, superiors, and subordinates. It is used to communicate with people elsewhere in the organization, and even used at times to communicate with people outside the organization. IM at KME supports what Wellman has called the turn to networked individualism : connected, shifting interactions in sparsely-knit, loosely-bounded social networks rather than focused interactions in densely-knit, tightly-bounded groups ( Wellman, 2002 ).

Information about visibility, a distinguishing feature of IM tools in comparison to other CMC systems, enhances and supports social interactions. The uses and meanings that KME employees give to visibility information depend on a number of factors, such as the status relationships among users, their task interdependencies, their past history of collaboration, and their informal socializing. Therefore, visibility information is a potentially relevant feature of the IM system at KME when analyzed in its social context.

Awareness is a key affordance of the KME IM system, and is a byproduct of visibility information. If close ties link employees, then they use visibility information to stay aware of each other's online activities. However, if workers do not know each other or do not share strong ties, visibility does not result in awareness. This reflects previous research by Handel and Herbsleb (2002) , who concluded that “the usual indication of presence … does not itself provide sufficient conversation-starting material” (p. 9). While these authors argue that further cues need to be built into IM systems to encourage spontaneous, informal exchanges, our findings suggest that social networks are the key, rather than the specific features of the IM system. Rather than adding more social cues, a more useful approach would be to use tools that provide visibility in combination with FTF meetings so that people can become acquainted with each other and establish the trust necessary to use IM to initiate conversations.

Accountability is a product of visibility information. It has variable impacts at KME. If relationships are characterized by large discrepancies between the status of the users, visibility is more likely to be used as a means for accountability. Such accountability is reflected in the behavior of both lower and higher status workers. Accountability in IM works differently for employees with lower and higher status. For lower status employees, accountability means that information requests need to be answered in a timely manner because higher status employees are aware of the fact that they are working at their desks. For higher status employees, accountability means that they can expect responses within a short time. Higher status employees can also monitor the online behavior of their employees by observing when they log on and out of the system.

Several lessons emerge from this study for the design of collaborative systems. This study has shown that visibility is a useful feature for promoting informal, ad hoc exchanges, a sense of community, and ease in collaboration. However, visibility primarily promotes these collaborative exchanges among people who share strong, trusting ties. This study has also revealed a pattern of networked individualism, consisting of shifting sets of communication partners rather than interactions among a densely knit group.

Finally, our research has shown that social translucence is a useful framework for examining existing communication systems and providing guidance in the design of new systems—in particular real-time communication systems such as IM. At the same time, the social translucence framework needs to be expanded to account for the influence of social factors such as power, social relationships, and norms within organizations.

Research underlying this article has been supported by CITO, the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, the IBM Institute of Knowledge-Based Organizations, Microsoft Research, Mitel Networks, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The first author acknowledges assistance from the Alumni Research Awards Program, Faculty of Social Science, the University of Western Ontario. We thank the editors and an anonymous reviewer for useful comments. We especially want to thank all the employees at KME who completed the survey, and even more so, those employees who also participated in the interviews and observations.

We use the term “local virtualities” here to describe work settings where people are physically near each other (i.e., co-located) and yet use CMC to exchange information, share best practices and socialize. See Quan-Haase and Cothrel (2003) and Quan-Haase and Wellman (2004 , 2005 ) for more extensive descriptions and discussions of local virtualities at KME. The term “local virtuality” has also been used in a study of email use in rural communities ( Koskikallio, 2002 ).

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Communication in Instant Messengers Essay

The present research provides really interesting insights into the nature of human communication through such digital resources as instant messengers. Some note that face-to-face communication is richer due to non-verbal communication, and digital communication is deprived of this possibility. However, it is clear that digital communication can be as rich as face-to-face communication. Emoticons and stickers make communication more emotionally loaded. It is quite expected that women use more emoticons and stickers as they are more emotional, and they want to share their emotions or express their attitude towards news, concepts, or remarks. It is also clear that men are more concerned about sharing information. Just like in face-to-face communication, they are not as emotional as women are.

It is quite interesting to discover the change in communication patterns of a male when he is speaking with a female. Thus, when speaking with a female, a male uses more emoticons and stickers. It is also clear that people use additional resources (emoticons, stickers, pictures, and so on) and the choice of these resources depends on users’ characters and mood. It is also possible to add that these resources are equivalent to non-verbal tools in non-verbal communication. It is necessary to add that the present research also helped me acquire some skills in applying different research methods.

The research is based on the observation that lasted for a month and unveiled peculiarities of people communication, but it can be improved. However, the number of participants is insufficient. Four participants of both sexes took part in the research. The next step will be an analysis of data obtained through the observation of at least 100 participants. This number of samples can be relevant as it is important to make sure that people having different characters take part in the research. The next step can be observing the way people of different ages use instant messaging. At this point, it is necessary to add that it is essential to use a mixed research method with a focus on qualitative data. It is important to see the difference between the communication patterns of people of different ages and characters. However, it is also important to understand why people have such patterns. It can also be interesting to compare the way two people communicate face-to-face and using an instant messenger. It is possible to assume that digital and face-to-face communication of a person has certain similarities.

It can also be interesting to look into cultural differences in communication patterns. It is possible to observe the way people pertaining to different cultures communicate. At that, it is possible to compare the way; for example, Americans and Chinese people use instant messaging. It can also be interesting to observe the way intercultural communication occurs. It is clear that people having similar cultural backgrounds have similar codes, but there are high chances that for people pertaining to different cultures, certain emoticons and patterns can mean different things.

Obviously, these methods will require a significant amount of time and effort. It will be necessary to analyze numerous text messages and have numerous interviews with different people (and analyze people’s answers). Nonetheless, this will be important research, as it will reveal peculiarities of people’s digital and face-to-face communication. It will also help identify the role instant messaging plays in people’s lives and can potentially play.

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The Effect of Using Instant Messaging Communication on the Teaching and Learning Experience of Students

First Online: 30 September 2020

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There has been recent interest in studying the use of instant messaging (IM) as a teaching tool for supervising student dissertations and tutoring undergraduate students as discussed by Yue (2014a, 2014b, 2015). The research studies on this area have indicated that students are very positive about the use of IM for communicating with their tutors or supervisors. This chapter aims to study the use of IM as a supplementary tool in tutoring undergraduate students. The use of IM was analysed, based on the teaching and learning feedback obtained from an end-of-course questionnaire survey. A correlation analysis was carried out to study the possible relationship between the use of IM and the teaching and learning experience of students. Other associated measures, such as the tutorial attendance rate and assessment marks, were also examined.

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Yue, F. (2020). The Effect of Using Instant Messaging Communication on the Teaching and Learning Experience of Students. In: Li, K.C., Tsang, E.Y.M., Wong, B.T.M. (eds) Innovating Education in Technology-Supported Environments. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6591-5_4

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Instant messaging is a form of communication that has become increasingly popular in recent years. It allows people to send messages, images, and video quickly and easily over the internet. It has become an important part of modern life for many people due to its convenience and immediacy.Instant messaging offers a way for users to stay connected with friends, family members, and colleagues at any time of the day or night. This makes it particularly useful for those who don’t have the time or ability to talk on the phone or visit in person frequently. As well as making it easier to keep in touch with others without having to make long-distance calls or travel long distances, instant messaging also ensures that conversations are private since only two people can be involved at one time.Another advantage of using instant messaging is that it enables users to communicate with multiple individuals simultaneously through group chat rooms. Group chats allow several users from all around the world (depending on their location) to connect by sharing ideas instantly and engaging in meaningful discussions regardless of physical proximity. This makes it ideal for work teams, school projects, and even social activities such as club meetings or parties where everyone needs access to information quickly but may not have enough time for personal conversations between each other. The disadvantage of using this type of communication technology is that messages can be sent too quickly which might lead some people feeling overwhelmed if they receive too many notifications at once; however this problem can usually be avoided by setting specific times when you are available online so your contacts know when you will respond more promptly. Additionally because there is no face-to-face contact present during instant message exchanges it can sometimes lead to misunderstandings regarding tone and intention behind particular messages sent back-and-forth unless these are clarified properly before continuing further dialogue with one another — something which requires patience, understanding, and empathy between both parties involved in order for things not get awkward. In conclusion: Instant Messaging provides an easy way for us all to stay connected with our loved ones throughout our busy lives by enabling instantaneous communication across different parts of the globe – although care should always be taken when interpreting what someone has written.

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Essay: The Use Of Instant Messaging

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Instant Messaging is the most-used form of communication within society today. However, studies have shown that the new application, Snapchat, has rapidly been rising in numbers regarding users and every day usage. The purpose of this study was to look at the nature of Snapchat, why it’s so appealing, and what exactly is so appealing to users. Why are people choosing to use Snapchat over other IM applications (e.g., Facebook, Skype, etc.)? With research showing snapchat becoming more and more popular, it is believed that social capital ideals and on-going, rapid communication are both huge factors as to why the application is so successful. If more instant messaging applications allowed the content people shared to persist for a limited amount of time, like Snapchat, people would be more inclined to use them. Primary Question Asked: What is the nature and role of Snapchat use in facilitating social interactions and networking? This study was designed to examine: How exactly people use the app, Snapchat. What people use it for Who people use it for How often people use it What benefits they get from using it The researchers used a correlational design to test the primary hypothesis. We know this because, the researchers specifically wanted to look at first-year students only with the intention of take a closer look at a younger agre group of Snapchat users. Correlational designs have many advantages. For this study, in particular, the researchers wanted to take a close look at Snapchat users amongst a younger age group instead of a wider range which would include more variables to the study. Therefore, there is more correlation to the study and what is being studied/looked at. As we learned earlier in the semester, Corrolation does not mean causation. In explaining this further, correlational research studies can not prove that one variable caused another variable to change in any way. N = 209 (139 female 70 male) Students at the University of the West of England (UWE) Looked at the relationship between the use of Snapchat, the intensity of using the app, and its effects on social capital. Variables: Sociodemographics (the effects on social capital/social interactions) Snapchat usage (intensity) Other social media platforms (IM) In the study, the variables looked at were: Gender, Age, Sexual Orientation, Employment, Relationship, Hours of internet/day, Frequency of IM use, Snapchat intensity, Constant, Observations, etc. The researchers gave out different surveys containing questions regarding their Snapchat usage. Used small sample sizes so they could look at the data more in-depth Conducted regression diagnostics First looked at socio-demographic factors and how they control/ effect the participants’ lives Identifying: Patterns of snapchat use Snaps sent and recieved General aspects Association between intensity of use and social capital The researchers found the Snapchat was infact reported to be one of the top three instant messaging applications used most frequently. The study also shows that the app, Snapchat was used to communicate with a single person rather than a larger group, typically close friends, significant others or family. Snapchat was found to have a very positive association between the intensity of usage and social capital. “Users typically send (and recieve) a selfie…” – Lukasz Piwek & Adam Joinson Within this study, the researchers probably found limitations: Can’t control understanding whether or not the participants are being truthful For example: how is it possible to know exactly what the participants are snapchatting Privacy Provocative? Intimacy? Accuracy!!

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Mobile Instant Messaging In the ESL Writing Class

* * * on the internet * * *, november 2016 — volume 20, number 3.

Messaging apps such as WeChat , Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger turbocharge writing by increasing students’ motivation, their production, and the quality of their writing. What’s more, the apps are conducive to getting students actually reflecting on, and thereby learning from, their errors, in ways that traditional pedagogical methods, by their very nature, cannot. In this article I will show how writing and grammar teachers can, simply by adopting one of these, accelerate the learning process and increase students’ satisfaction with that process.

The value of mobile learning for TESL has been well documented. For example, Godwin-Jones (2011) wrote, “We know that learning becomes more real and permanent when tied to learners’ lives outside the academic environment. Mobile devices are a great way to achieve that goal,” while Zaki and Yunus (2015) wrote that “mobile learning can be integrated into academic writing by using it with several writing approaches which complement the pedagogical advantages in mobile devices.”

On the other hand, the usefulness of mobile instant messaging (mIM) is less well documented, perhaps because the wide availability of smartphones with sophisticated messaging apps is a comparatively recent phenomenon. At present that situation may be changing; instant messaging is increasingly popular, at around 2.8 billion accounts for just the top three instant messaging apps WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger.

Of particular interest for the author is that instant messaging apps lend themselves particularly well to use in ESL. Their usefulness here has been pointed out by, among others, Andujar (2016), who wrote: “WhatsApp constitutes a powerful educational tool to encourage second language interaction among participants and its tremendous potential to activate students’ involvement remains one of the least exploited functionalities of mobile phones.”

The use of instant messaging apps specifically for ESL writing classes is an even more recent development than is their use for other forms of classroom communication such as delivering homework assignments. Perhaps one reason for this is that the medium is usually used by students outside class, for informal, non-school-related communications. Thus it is not surprising that Bouhnik and Deshen (2014) write “users also mentioned…the feeling that the application is not a formal channel for communication.” There has for example been a lot written about unacceptable use of internet abbreviations such as “AFAIK” (as far as I know) and “u” carrying over into student academic essays (Tomaszewski, 2016).

Part of the negative attitude toward using mIM apps for language learning may also derive from the fact that smartphones have a small screen, which may lead teachers to feel that an entire essay would be too long to show up clearly. The writer himself wondered about the screen-size issue but his classroom use of smartphone-based instant messaging for at least shorter essays did not elicit any protest from students, nor difficulty by the teacher in correcting/commenting.

It might also be noted here that, as McLuhan (1964) famously pointed out, “The medium is the message”; therefore, the very existence of messaging apps has altered when and how people write. They now write much more often, when earlier they would have spoken in person or on the phone. At the same time and for the same reason, writing, since it has been more and more of a “speech-substitute,” has become less formal. However, teachers will agree that academic writing must not be eclipsed by this new, more informal type of writing, and it is incumbent on the teacher to demand the required degree of formality in form and content from writing students using internet messaging apps for classwork. Fortunately, this is not difficult to do, and even do in real time when appropriate. (For longer academic essays, however, it remains useful to have the students submit them by email or attachment or in their own messaging channel, rather than the group’s, even if they have initially been viewed and corrected in the group channel. The reason for that is the greater ease of storage and retrieval and the ability for the teacher to go more into depth with comments and corrections.)

Another reason American teachers may not have adopted instant messaging in large numbers is because in the U.S.A., unlike in many other countries, apps like WhatsApp and WeChat are still not widely used, and thus their possible use for educational purposes may not even have occurred to many educators. The fact that most students in many cultures already use a messaging app many times a day means that the transition to classroom usage is painless and, not surprisingly, fun for them (the creator of WeChat recently said WeChat is not an app, it is a “lifestyle”). However, with the advent of Facebook Messenger in June of 2016 as a separate app from its parent, that relative unfamiliarity of instant messaging apps in North America may be disappearing.

iIM apps in the classroom

Teachers can start using instant messaging apps in their writing classes almost immediately. The great majority of our students now have smartphones and are already using instant messaging in their daily lives. All the teacher needs to do is to build on that base for academic purposes.

In practice that means:

A) From the setup point of view:

Get an account (WeChat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are all excellent).
Ask those students who do not already use the teacher’s app of choice to download it.
Have the students add the teacher as a contact.
Create a ‘group’ in the app with all the students and the teacher, and optionally
download the WeChat app for PCs or Macs so that if the classroom has a large screen and internet connection the teacher can show everything on a big screen.
Create subgroups (with the teacher as a member of all subgroups) to allow small group work.

B) From the instructional side:

Start off with warm-ups: easy questions the students can answer almost conversationally, even going so far as to write “How do you feel this morning?” “How was the homework?” etc.
Respond with the teacher’s own feelings and thoughts to establish rapport.
Simultaneously suggest corrections, better formulations, reminders as to grammar, syntax, and structure, as and when errors ‘pop up’.
Have students ‘recall’ their messages in order to fix and then resubmit them, which greatly reinforces learning.
Segue into more academic writing by giving in-class assignments to be done in the app, perhaps to be roughed out in small group channels then posted in the all-group channel.
Correct students’ errors with the built-in voice-recording feature with the unexpected happy consequence, confirmed by my students, that listening to the teacher’s correction (several times if necessary) and having to think about it before making the required change to the draft, results in superior acquisition of the correct form over the traditional red-ink markup method.
Encourage students to immediately ask questions, in or out of class, by text or by voice, about anything they have not understood, thereby creating an ongoing dialog with the teacher that enriches and personalizes the learning experience. Note that texting and voice-recording have the great advantage of being both immediate, taking advantage of the student’s spike in interest or curiosity in the moment, and also repeatable after the fact in case of a student’s time constraints, or the desire to understand better by repeated reading/hearing, etc. This has the advantages of both written and spoken corrections, but rolled into one seamless app.

The key advantages of IM over traditional writing classes are several and notable. Many are mentioned by Bouhnik and Deshen (2014, p. 226), such as the ability to get to know the students in-depth, the creation of a positive atmosphere in the class, and students feeling more comfortable about approaching their teachers and each other. Other benefits have been discovered by my students and me by trial and error. Here are some we felt to be especially noteworthy.

Students and teacher see others’ writing immediately and can respond immediately, thereby changing writing assignments from a chore to a living exchange of ideas using English as the medium. It’s writing to communicate important ideas rather than writing to satisfy a homework requirement. Writing becomes an ongoing (but guided) conversation rather than a solitary activity. When students use English to communicate something meaningful or interesting to them, that’s when they really appreciate the value of learning the language. When they receive immediate feedback from the other students on their ideas, they are motivated to respond themselves. That motivation generates far more writing than one sees in the traditional class.
The teacher can signal errors and suggest corrections and/or improvements on the fly, nipping errors “in the bud” and getting students to write correctly in real time, instead of them passively viewing their errors “cold” perhaps days later after the teacher has returned homework and the student no longer remembers clearly what he/she was even writing about.
Students are strongly psychologically motivated to make their writing look good, knowing that their classmates and teacher can immediately see what they have written and can respond to it. In addition, the apps allow the student to recall any piece of writing and correct and resubmit it almost immediately. No harm, no foul!
Students can more easily help each other in real time, allowing the more proficient students to encourage those who need more assistance. In addition, students start to use their internal monitors more, seeing their own errors after they’ve made them and correcting them themselves. That self-monitoring is of course a vital step on the way to correct, cogent writing.
The ability to create subgroups allows for competition and debate–in writing–between groups of students, something easy to achieve in the traditional speaking class but difficult in the traditional writing class, particularly if the teacher wants the debate to proceed in real time with all the excitement that generates.
The line between in-class work and homework becomes fairly seamless, and that seamlessness provides a sense of continuity and of community, whether the student is in or out of the classroom. Even ill students often participate from home.

In a nutshell, messaging apps are more than just another tool in the writing teacher’s’ arsenal. They change writing from the often tiresome chore it is for many students into an activity they eagerly engage in, with the result that their writing ability improves more rapidly and with far more enthusiasm and buy-in on the students’ part.

The future looks bright for the use of mobile instant messaging apps in ESL writing classes, and using them seems well-advised, given the huge increase in the quantity of writing already being generated outside class because of those very apps. Prejudices against using a tool because it just happens to be also used for non-educational purposes are in my view unwarranted and unsupported.

In this article we have seen how writing and grammar teachers can, simply by adopting a free mobile instant messaging app, both speed up the learning process and increase students’ satisfaction with it–a veritable double whammy!

We don’t know what further tools and improvements to existing tools will come to be, but mobile instant messaging can and should be used here and now for the boost it gives to learning, motivation and personalization of the classroom experience. The medium is the message, and the message is: try the new medium!

Andujar, A. (2016). Benefits of mobile instant messaging to develop ESL writing. System 62 . Available http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0346251X16300835 .

Bouhnik, D., & Deshen, M. (2014). WhatsApp goes to school: Mobile instant messaging between teachers and students. Journal of Information Technology Education 13 , Research, 217-231. Retrieved from http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol13/JITEv13ResearchP217-231Bouhnik0601.pdf .

Godwin-Jones, R. (2011). Emerging technologies: Mobile apps for language learning. Language Learning & Technology 15 , 2 (2–11). Available http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2011/emerging.pdf .

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media , Routledge, London.

Statista (2016). Most famous social network sites worldwide as of September 2016, ranked by number of active users (in millions). Available http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ .

Tomaszewski, J. (2016). Do texting and “cyber slang” harm students’ writing skills? Education World . Available http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/arcives/texting_impacts_student-writing.shtml .

Zaki, A. A., & Yunus, M. M. (2015). Potential of Mobile Learning in Teaching of ESL Academic Writing. English Language Teaching 8 , 6 (11-19). Available http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/49403/26587 .

February 5, 2023
8 minute read

The Benefits of Instant Messaging at Work

In today’s fast-paced work environments, effective communication is essential for success. Employees need to be able to communicate quickly and efficiently, especially when working collaboratively on projects. In recent years, instant messaging has emerged as one of the best communication tools for businesses.

Topics Covered

Improved Communication and Collaboration

One of the primary benefits of instant messaging is improved communication and collaboration. Instant messaging allows team members to communicate in real time, making it easy to ask questions, get feedback, and share information with each other. This creates a more collaborative work environment, leading to improved productivity and better project outcomes.

For example, imagine you are working on a project with a team member who is located in a different time zone. With instant messaging, you can easily communicate with them and get the information you need without having to wait for a response via email or phone call. This not only saves time but also ensures that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.

Faster Response Times

Instant messaging enables employees to respond quickly to messages, eliminating the need to wait for an email response or phone call. With messaging, employees can easily send and receive updates on their projects, leading to faster response times and better decision-making.

For instance, if you are working on a project and need a quick answer from a team member, you can send them an instant message and get a response within seconds. This helps in keeping the project moving forward and ensures that deadlines are met.

Real-Time Updates and Notifications

Instant messaging platforms also offer real-time updates and notifications . Team members can be notified instantly when a change is made to a project, making it easy to keep up-to-date with progress and stay on top of deadlines. This helps in keeping everyone on the same page and minimizes the risk of missed deadlines.

For example, if a team member makes a change to a document, the rest of the team can be instantly notified via instant message. This ensures that everyone is aware of the change and can adjust their work accordingly.

Streamlined Teamwork

Instant messaging platforms allow teams to work together efficiently, irrespective of their physical location. With messaging tools like file-sharing , screen-sharing, and video-conferencing, project collaboration can be streamlined, making it easy to share ideas, create documents, and collaborate on tasks.

For instance, if you are working on a project with team members who are located in different parts of the world, you can use instant messaging to share files and collaborate in real time. This makes it easy to work together, even if you are not in the same physical location.

In conclusion, instant messaging is a powerful tool that can help teams communicate more effectively, collaborate more efficiently, and ultimately achieve better project outcomes. By using instant messaging platforms, teams can work together seamlessly and efficiently, no matter where they are located.

Increased Productivity

Instant messaging is not just a communication tool but can also be a productivity tool. Here are some ways instant messaging can help you be more productive.

Reduced Email Clutter

Instant messaging can reduce the clutter in your inbox. People often send emails that do not need to be formal and, in many cases, could be handled by messaging. Instant messaging allows for these informal communications, removing unnecessary emails from your inbox.

For example, instead of sending an email to a colleague asking for a quick update on a project, you can send them a quick message on the messaging platform. This not only saves time but also reduces the number of emails in your inbox, making it easier to find important emails.

Time-Saving Features

Many instant messaging tools come with time-saving features such as instant replies, reminders, and read receipts. These features help to speed up communication, making it easy to follow up on messages and stay organized.

For instance, instant replies can be used to acknowledge a message without having to type a response. This can be especially useful when you are in a meeting or working on a project and do not have time to respond to a message immediately.

Reminders can be set to ensure that important messages are not forgotten. For example, if you receive a message about a meeting, you can set a reminder to ensure that you do not forget to attend the meeting.

Read receipts can be used to confirm that a message has been received and read. This can be helpful when you are waiting for a response to an important message.

Task Management and Prioritization

Instant messaging can also be used to manage tasks and prioritize them. Teams can create task lists, assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor progress through messaging platforms. This can help ensure that tasks are completed on time and deadlines are met.

For instance , a team can create a task list on the messaging platform and assign tasks to team members. Each team member can then update the task list to show the progress they have made on their assigned tasks. This can help the team stay organized and ensure that tasks are completed on time.

Overall, instant messaging can be a valuable productivity tool that can help you stay organized, save time, and communicate more efficiently with your colleagues.

Remote Work and Flexibility

Remote work has become increasingly popular in recent years, with more and more companies offering their employees the option to work from home or other remote locations. One of the key tools that has made remote work possible and successful is instant messaging.

Connecting Remote Teams

Instant messaging can act as a virtual office, connecting remote teams and enabling collaboration. This is especially important for companies with employees spread across different locations or even different countries. With instant messaging, teams can communicate and work together regardless of their physical location, making teamwork possible even when separated by time zones and geography. This can lead to increased productivity, as team members can easily share ideas and information, and work together to solve problems.

For example, imagine a team of developers working on a project from different parts of the world. They can use instant messaging to communicate with each other in real-time, sharing updates on their progress, discussing any issues they encounter, and collaborating on solutions. This can help ensure that the project stays on track and is completed on time.

Accessible from Any Device

Another advantage of instant messaging is that it is accessible from any device, including smartphones, tablets, and computers. This makes it easy for remote workers to stay connected, no matter where they are . Having access to instant messaging tools from any device enhances productivity and fosters a more flexible work environment.

For instance, a salesperson who is traveling can use instant messaging to stay in touch with their team back at the office. They can receive updates on the latest sales figures, communicate with customers, and coordinate with their colleagues, all from their smartphones or tablet. This allows them to stay productive even when they are out of the office.

Adapting to Different Time Zones

Instant messaging can also help teams adjust to different time zones. By using instant messaging, team members can communicate with each other when it’s most convenient for them, making it easier to work with colleagues in different time zones .

For example, imagine a team with members in New York, London, and Tokyo. They can use instant messaging to communicate with each other throughout the day, even if they are working during different hours. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that deadlines are met.

In conclusion, instant messaging is a vital tool for remote teams, enabling them to collaborate and communicate effectively regardless of their physical location. It is accessible from any device, making it easy for remote workers to stay connected, and can help teams adapt to different time zones. With instant messaging, remote work can be just as productive and successful as working in a traditional office setting.

Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

Instant messaging can also contribute to employee engagement and satisfaction. Here are some ways instant messaging can help keep employees engaged and satisfied at work.

Building Relationships and Team Culture

Instant messaging provides an opportunity for employees to build relationships and develop a team culture. It enables employees to communicate informally and share interests, personalities, and perspectives.

Encouraging Open Communication

Instant messaging can encourage open communication between employees and their managers. It provides an informal platform to discuss work-related concerns, ask questions, and provide feedback. This open communication can promote a culture of transparency, accountability, and trust.

Providing a Platform for Recognition and Feedback

Instant messaging can provide a platform for recognition and feedback. Managers can use messaging to provide feedback or recognition to an employee in real-time. This feedback and recognition can motivate and encourage employees to perform better.

In conclusion, Instant messaging plays a vital role in modern business communication. It allows for faster communication, streamlined collaboration, increased productivity, and a more flexible work environment. Instant messaging can also improve employee engagement and satisfaction, building relationships and promoting open communication within the workplace. Overall, integrating instant messaging into your business communication strategy can lead to better outcomes, happier employees, and a more successful business.

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COMMENTS

Effects of using mobile instant messaging on student behavioral
Introduction. With the wide penetration of smartphones and mobile broadband access, mobile instant messaging (MIM) is becoming an essential means of communication worldwide (Dhir et al., 2020).As of July 2020, WhatsApp was the most popular MIM app with 2 billion monthly active users, followed by Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion) and WeChat (1.2 billion) (Statista, 2021).
An exploratory investigation of the use and effects of academic instant
The use of instant messaging groups for various academic purposes is a rising, but largely understudied, trend in higher education institutions. In the present study we investigate the use purposes and outcomes of three types of academic instant messaging groups or AIMGs. Formal AIMGs are created and managed by teaching staff, class AIMGs are created by students and joined by all members of a ...
Use of Instant Messaging to Improve Communication Between ...
4 Conclusions. The use of instant messaging allowed teachers and students to have fluid communication. In addition, this tool is adapted to students' new forms of communication because they feel comfortable with its daily use and allows them to overcome the gaps in space and time.
Perceived Positive and Negative Effects of Instant Messaging on
The perceived negative effects of IM are as follows: Lack of organization: Instant messages are typically written in one "paragraph" that can contain unrelated ideas. This unorganized style is also apparent in academic writing, as noted by one student: "On my papers, I tend to have really bad organization—my thoughts are all spread out ...
Full article: Students and instant messaging: a survey of current use
Introduction. Instant messaging (IM) is the term used to describe the technology through which 'users can set up a list of partners who will be able to receive notes that pop up on their screens the moment one of them writes and hits the send button' (Castelluccio, Citation 1999, p. 34).IM contrasts with synchronous chat in this respect, since this is usually organised through publicly ...
Conclusion
CONCLUSION. >> Conversation via instant messaging is as varied as conversation itself. Some students use it 23 hours a day while others use it 2 hours a day. There are so many ways for the average college student to use IM that it is impossible to label it as being good or bad. That would be a huge oversimplification. It is more appropriate to ...
Understanding Instant Messaging in the Workplace
While messaging is commonplace today, it was only decades ago that chatting with friends and strangers online was a revolutionary. In 1961, MIT's Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), along with other multi-user operating system helps to pioneer instant messaging by allowing up to 3 users to chat in real-time [].Internet Relay Chat (IRC) allows users to connect to networks with client ...
Instant Messaging for Collaboration: a Case Study of a High-Tech Firm
This article examines uses of instant messaging (IM) in a high-tech firm to illustrate how knowledge workers use this new work tool to collaborate with co-workers. ... Conclusions Local Virtualities. We have found that workers at KME rely heavily on CMC for communication both within and outside the organization. In accord with previous studies ...
An exploratory investigation of the use and effects of academic instant
Method: We conducted two focus groups (n = 4 and n = 3) in November 2021 at a university of technology in South Africa to explore the perceptions of educators on using mobile instant messaging ...
Electronics
The new era of hyper-communication has led organizations to increasingly adopt communications technologies such as instant messaging (IM) for better connections and improved work efficiency. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exerted further pressure and many organizations increasingly depend on IM tools to manage remote workers. In this new context, negative workplace impacts of IM seem more ...
Instant Messaging Essay
Instant Messaging Essay. Instant messaging is a tool used by a vast majority of Internet users. This new tools has some advantages and some disadvantages. IM is used a lot of the time in education. It's used for recruiting and admissions, student-faculty communications, library consultations, group projects, and immediate feedback, and ...
How to Conclude an Essay
Step 1: Return to your thesis. To begin your conclusion, signal that the essay is coming to an end by returning to your overall argument. Don't just repeat your thesis statement —instead, try to rephrase your argument in a way that shows how it has been developed since the introduction. Example: Returning to the thesis.
Impact of Instant Messaging on Society
Most of the instant messenger has fundamental functions that include instant messages, file-sharing, voice conversations, sounds and streaming content. Instant messages allow two or more online parties to engage in correspondence. File-sharing allows people to share files with their peers by sending the files directly through IM windows.
Security Management: Instant Messaging Perspective
Affected: The IM worm affects Skype users running Windows. Threat Type: Worm. Description: 'A new instant-messaging pest that spreads using the chat feature in Skype has surfaced, security firm F-Secure warned. The worm, dubbed Pykse.A, is similar to threats that affect instant-messaging applications.
Communication in Instant Messengers
Communication in Instant Messengers Essay. The present research provides really interesting insights into the nature of human communication through such digital resources as instant messengers. Some note that face-to-face communication is richer due to non-verbal communication, and digital communication is deprived of this possibility. However ...
The Rise of Instant Messaging for Communication
The Rise of Instant Messaging for Communication. Decent Essays. 612 Words. 2 Pages. Open Document. Instant messaging (IM) is a rapid and on the rise communications medium trendy with both company and home users. From its commencement as easy peer-to-peer conversation service, instant messaging has developed to grow to be a staple mode of ...
The Effect of Using Instant Messaging Communication on the ...
There has been recent interest in studying the use of instant messaging (IM) as a teaching tool for supervising student dissertations and tutoring undergraduate students as discussed by Yue (2014a, 2014b, 2015). ... Students were required to submit an individual written essay not exceeding 2500 words, which accounted for 100% of the overall ...
Instant Messaging in a Business Performance
Instant Messaging (IM), in contrast, has become of great interest to the modern community because it is a tool that successfully supports informal communication. The modern workplace is inherently collaborative, and this collaboration relies on effective communication among co-workers. According to Woodard she noted that with the introduction ...
Instant Messaging Essay Samples
Major Uses of the Internet Essay Example. 465 words 2 pages. E-mail is private and goes from one user to another. Instant messaging (such as AIM or ICQ) Is similar to email, but allows two or more people to chat to each other much faster. Some governments think the Internet is a bad thing, and block all or part of it.
Essay: The Use Of Instant Messaging
This page of the essay has 568 words. Download the full version above. Instant Messaging is the most-used form of communication within society today. However, studies have shown that the new application, Snapchat, has rapidly been rising in numbers regarding users and every day usage. The purpose of this study was to look at the nature of ...
Mobile Instant Messaging In the ESL Writing Class
The use of instant messaging apps specifically for ESL writing classes is an even more recent development than is their use for other forms of classroom communication such as delivering homework assignments. Perhaps one reason for this is that the medium is usually used by students outside class, for informal, non-school-related communications.
Instant messaging Essay
Instant messaging Essay. Instant messaging has revolutionized the way people communicate. It has become a reliable, quick, and convenient way to stay connected across the globe. This essay will explore the impact of instant messaging on communication, its effects on relationships, and its implications for our digital future.
The Benefits of Instant Messaging at Work
In conclusion, instant messaging is a vital tool for remote teams, enabling them to collaborate and communicate effectively regardless of their physical location. It is accessible from any device, making it easy for remote workers to stay connected, and can help teams adapt to different time zones. With instant messaging, remote work can be ...