Interaction and outeraction: instant messaging in action
CSCW '00 Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
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The objective of this study is to understand why people choose to use such or such media of communication in their daily activity. In a field study, twelve young adults were requested to narrate daily communication experiences on a storyboard, some of them being interviewed afterward. Quantitative results show a significant relationship between the choice of media and the affective or socio-relational link with the recipient. Qualitative analyses highlight (1) more or less deliberate choices of media, (2) strategic choices of media for emotional interactions or for reinforcing social relationships, (3) management of communication focus, (4) management of information complexity and ambiguity, (5) management of interruptiveness and modeling interlocutors' availability and preference, (6) management of time-distributed communication with conversational progress and context switches. These results are put into perspective in the framework of mediated communication theories.