US adolescents IMing
Three excellent scientific papers, one in press and the two others published in 2002, expand our understanding of IM usage among adolescents with in-depth qualitative research. These papers uncover what have become IM common practices; explore motives and external factors that have contributed to IM widespread adoption; define the place that IM has with respect to other formats of being together and communicating.
Today, Instant Messaging offers a very good fit to adolescents' emotional and social needs: of intimate, intense relationships with a few close friends; of feeling part of peer groups and of spending as much time as possible with them. Using IM, adolescent friends manage to spend more time together; create private social spaces within the larger domestic environment; maintain and develop distant relationships; cope with the changing status of their relationships and more generally dispose of an environment to explore social roles and relationships freely. It is alos over IM that alliances are forged, social and emotional support is offered, personal issues raised.
IM conversations are a natural extension to the multiple interactions that take place face-to-face among adolescents. One the studies (Grinder & Paten) reports that some of the interviewees feel that school leaves too little time to be with their friends. The first thing they do when they come home is to log on and open the IM channel to meet them again. Incidentally, this time also coincides with a period in which the home computer and Internet access are usually more available. The meeting itself is either set up by a system-generated invitation to join in a chat session; planned at school “IM me after school”; part of routines as participants have a good idea of their friends’ domestic schedules; or started from the buddy list where the friend shows up as she or he logs on.
Most of IM conversations therefore take place among friends who are used to spend time together in the physical space. They general concern one or two friends, but can go grow to four or five simultaneous conversations (Schiano et al.). The social network within which IM operates is relatively well defined. Rare are the conversations with strangers. And when they happen, it is around specific topic of interest, such as music, or to kill time when none of the friends is online. Public chat rooms are considered a "waste of time" because of the poor quality of the conversations. More frequent conversations occur with distant friends, former school-mates, friends met at summer camps; or friends of friends. Most of the conversations happen between the more or less five core friends that represent the core of the buddy list. And when researchers have asked participants to describe their buddy list, they found that beside the core, the buddy list contained several infrequently contacted remote friends and acquaintances, and many others handles participants could no longer identify (Schiano et al.). "I'm away messages" further facilitate group cohesion beyond co-presence as they keep each other up-to-date with their whereabouts.
The topics also reflect the continuity between face-to-face and IM mediated conversations. On IM, friends chitchat, gossip, flirt, just like they do when they are physically together. They also do event planning which is considered to be greatly facilitated by IM. Given the practical and family-related constraints adolescents face, they use IM to coordinate when it comes to going out together for shopping or to see a movie. That same planning would require multiple dyadic telephone conversations that, as one interviewee in Grinter & Palen study said, "took forever to get it sorted out". Sharing relevant web pages, such as film start times, through IM also facilitates planning. Finally, some interviewees indicate that at times friends discuss over IM course material, exercise or practice foreign languages over IM.
Flexibility in the handling of relationships is another important feature of IM use. With access permission, public profiles, multiple screen names, IM provide a palette of tools to explore - test, develop and repair personality traits and reactions - one's identity and the relationships with other group's members. For some participants, IM conversations help overcome shyness in approaching difficult topics with friends, facilitating online flirting. An anecdote illustrates this point. It is common practice to take part in a central group conversation and at the same time engage in other, parallel gossiping with some of the same people. This behaviour requires that many IM windows be open at the same time. Two of the participants in Grinder & Pale study described situations where they accidentally selected the wrong window and replied to the person they were gossiping about, instead of the one they were gossiping with.
A further feature, essential to understand the place that IM conversations have in adolescents' everyday life, is the creation of autonomous, private social arenas carved out of the public domestic arena. IM doesn't require ad hoc devices, IM doesn't ring, IM doesn't talk loud. As one of the authors write, "within domestic ecologies, IM operates below the radar: it is a quiet technology that is easily integrated into the conduct of other activities". And this feature was recognized as an important advantage by all participants. Considering the significant time that adolescents spend alone in front of the computer, IM conversations play a significant role in socializing the computer experience as a whole.
A final word on multitasking which is a defining feature of the way we function today. Once online, IM conversations coexist easily with multiple activities, from doing one's homework, to listening to music, emailing, searching the web. Conversations are put on hold, closed, and restarted. The semi-synchronous, informal nature of IM differentiates it quite clearly from email that adolescents use - they all have email accounts and check them regularly - for more formal purposes, such as applications to college, exchanges with teachers. Contrary to IM, email requires careful writing and spell-checking, and can spread over several days work.
Some elements concerning the way IM adoption unfolds. Participants refer to their desire to claim membership to particular social groups and to augment socializing opportunities with the groups. As one of the interviewee says: "It was a matter of be on or be out", while another added "because all my friends were talking, and I didn't want to miss out". Peer pressure appears to be a major catalyst in IM adoption, following a group-wise discretionary, bottom-up process. A few friends select an IM service; they encourage other group members to join in and use the same system. One participant recalls that he uses one IM system with his college friends, and another one with his high school friends, who had collectively decided on that system when he arrived at college. According to Grinter & Palen, peer pressure achieved critical mass, which in turn sustained long-term use. Over time, participation in IM conversations has simply become a dimension of group membership so much so that IM non-users are considered to be a nuisance. As one of the participants in Grinter & Palen study says about non-IM users: "not feeling like she knew where her friends were". The fact that IM clients are free, that infrastructure costs are taken up by the household or the school has certainly also contributed to massive IM adoption.
Instant messaging in teen life
R.E. Grinter & L. Palen
CSCW '02
Teenage Communication in the Instant Messaging Era
B.S. Boneva, A. Quinn, R.E. Kraut, S. Kiesler, I. Shklovski
In press, R. Krant, M. Brynin, S. Kiesler (Eds), During , Oxford University Press.
Teen use of messaging media
D. J. Schiano, C. P. Chen, J. Ginsberg, U. Gretarsdottir, M. Huddleston, E. Isaacs
CHI 2002 (unfortunately for subscribers only)
Where: US
When: 2001-2003 (approx)