An exploratory study of the selection of communication media: The relationship between flow and communication outcomes
Introduction
Previous studies on computer-mediated communications (CMC) focused primarily on comparing CMC to face-to-face communication [23], [26], [29], [32], [36], [43], [47], [50]. Among these studies (conducted in the last two decades), e-mail was the communication medium most widely discussed, compared, and contrasted with other channels of communication [9], [11], [17], [18], [26], [29], [31], [37]. As with e-mail, instant messaging is also an important communication medium, but it has not received the same amount of attention, and has not been studied extensively. This may be due in part to the fact that instant messaging is a relatively new application, newer than e-mail, and to the fact that most early adaptors have been younger users. As a result, instant messaging has not received adequate attention in literature.
Although they share many characteristics, there are some fundamental differences between e-mail and instant messaging. For instance, a frequently cited difference between e-mail and face-to-face communication is the reliance of e-mail on textual information, which lacks both visual and social cues during use [46]. But such a deficiency no longer exists in the case of instant messaging because instant messaging applications are equipped with a number of features that mimic visual and non-verbal cues, such as emotional icons, presence awareness, presence notification, voice chat, video conferencing, file exchange, drawing pads, application sharing, and others. These additional features and functions give instant messaging capabilities that significantly exceed those of traditional text-based e-mail previously studied. For example, the physical presence of participants is required for face-to-face communications, because the participants are necessarily aware of each other's presence due to proximity. Such awareness information is not available when using e-mail, but is available in most instant messaging applications, because instant messaging programs can notify users when someone they know becomes available online by changing the icon representing the user or even by sounding an alert.
However, presence does not always indicate availability to start a communication. For example, a person facing you may not be available to make conversation if he or she is reading a document quietly with the head down. Such cues are, again, unavailable to the user of traditional telecommunication media. To overcome this obstacle, instant messaging applications use additional icons to represent a user's availability status while online. Common availability status indicators include “away,” “do-not-disturb,” “call-me,” or “busy.” Such presence and availability status information is not available on e-mail applications. E-mail users need to wait for a response from the other party before knowing if that party is available. Other non-verbal cues such as hand waving, may attract the attention of persons involved in face-to-face communication, and instant messaging can also provide this effect. For example, some instant messaging applications allow a user to “shake” another user's application window to attract attention. At present, few studies have empirically examined the effects of such features offered by CMC media to provide the type of surrogate functionality that would be comparable to verbal and non-verbal cues in face-to-face communications [3].
As instant messaging technology plunges ahead in its rapid evolution, it sometimes creates obstacles to smooth communication. Because features in certain instant messaging programs are proprietary, they set up incompatibilities between applications, and so offer less consistency in user experience. Now, however, standardization of instant messaging protocols is underway through the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) proposal of Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). This standardization effort will serve as a foundation for enhancing compatibility across instant messaging programs because it will not limit the ability of vendors to add features to enhance interactivity or to improve communication quality. (Vendors could “borrow” features from other vendors without fear of copyright infringement.) Although standardization of instant messaging technology is not yet a reality, more interactive features, such as emotional icons, presence awareness, presence notification, voice chat, video conferencing, file exchange, drawing pads, application sharing, and others, are gradually becoming available across multiple proprietary instant messaging programs.
With these added capabilities, instant messaging will not only provide a new way to communicate, but will also offer a wealth of opportunities to change communication outcomes. As a result, some of the early theories and findings on computer-based communications may need to be revisited to assess their applicability to these new applications [29], [36].
Due to the many differences between e-mail and instant messaging described above, existing theories and research outcomes applicable to e-mail may not be applicable to instant messaging; and using instant messaging instead of e-mail for task communication may lead to different research outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine how two electronic media, e-mail and instant messaging, may affect communication outcomes differently, to examine the relationship between the flow construct and communication outcomes, and to determine how the choice of media may affect that relationship.
Section snippets
Literature review
Two areas of study that are directly related to this research are media choices and the concept of flow. A considerable amount of research has focused on the choice, use, and consequences of communication media [19], [24]. This issue has become even more important recently due to the proliferation of new media that have changed CMC in fundamental ways (such as videoconferencing and instant messaging). Flow is a construct that captures a person's inner state of feeling and perception when
Research model and hypotheses
Fig. 1 shows the conceptual model for this study. The three primary constructs in the model are media type, flow, and communication outcomes. A fourth construct, playfulness, is included in the model as a covariate—its purpose will be described in the following section. Three sets of hypotheses are listed below. Hypothesis 1 Playfulness will have no effect on the relationship between media type and communication outcomes.
Most current instant messaging applications contain features that users regard as
Research methods
The study was conducted at a large private university in the Mid-Western United States. Subjects were 94 students who volunteered to participate. The researchers neither coerced the subjects into participation nor provided financial compensation to encourage participation. All participants were Internet users, and had prior e-mail and instant messaging experience. The majority of subjects (78%) were male students. Of the 94 participants, 74 were undergraduate students (79%), 16 were graduate
Data analysis and results
Data analysis consisted of several steps. First, the reliability of the collected data and the validity of the instrument were analyzed. Second, selected descriptive statistics were applied to provide an overview of the results. Third, hypotheses were tested using various techniques.
Discussions
The data analysis result suggested that the choice between e-mail and instant messaging made a significant difference in communication outcomes. The two user groups differed on two variables: effectiveness and quality. The e-mail group performed better than the instant messaging group on both variables. In other words, e-mail was a more effective medium for the assigned task in this experiment. Instant messaging, which included additional features that seemed to mimic face-to-face
Limitations
The study had several limitations. First, the sample was not a representative group of the general population. The subjects were all college graduate and undergraduate students who were early adopters of new media. So the use of student subjects may have influenced the effects of the playfulness construct. Playfulness is more likely to be a factor for new applications. For college students who use both e-mail and instant messaging daily, the lack of effect seemed to be predictable. If the
Conclusion
This study used two electronic media, e-mail and instant messaging, to solve a problem in a controlled setting. Using student subjects, data were collected to assess the effects of media types and flow experience on communication outcomes. Subjects were divided into two groups, e-mail and instant messaging groups, and were assigned a problem-solving task. After the experiment, the student subjects filled out a questionnaire to collect the data. The results showed that the two media types
Kuanchin Chen is an Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems at the Department of Business Information Systems, Western Michigan University. Dr. Chen's research interests include electronic business, privacy & security, online behavioral issues (e.g., interactivity, dependency, and tracking/protection), Internet frauds, usability, data mining, and human computer interactions. He has published articles in journals and other academic publication outlets, such as IEEE Transactions on
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2014, Computers in Human BehaviorCitation Excerpt :This study adopts the factors measuring the flow experience (enjoyment, concentration, tele-presence, time distortion) proposed by Finneran and Zhang (2005), and the curiosity factor that was used by recent studies (Chen et al., 2008; Wang, Baker, Wanger, & Wakefield, 2007) as the variable of measuring the online flow experience. “SNS Flow” variables (enjoyment, concentration, curiosity, tele-presence, time distortion) are modified for this study, considering the operational definition used by existing studies (Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000; Chen et al., 2008; Hoffman & Novak, 2009; Huang, 2003; Shin, 2006). They analyzed Internet usage or online services.
Kuanchin Chen is an Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems at the Department of Business Information Systems, Western Michigan University. Dr. Chen's research interests include electronic business, privacy & security, online behavioral issues (e.g., interactivity, dependency, and tracking/protection), Internet frauds, usability, data mining, and human computer interactions. He has published articles in journals and other academic publication outlets, such as IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Information & Management, Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), IEEE Transactions on Education, Journal of Computer Information Systems and many others. He currently serves on the editorial or advisory boards of the Information Resources Management journal, International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, Journal of Website Promotion, Communications of the ICISA, IGI Global (formerly Idea Group), eWeek, and CMP. His book Online Consumer Protection: Theories of Human Relativism will be published in 2008. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Communications of ICISA journal.
David C. Yen is currently Jennifer J. Petters Chair in Asian Business and Professor of MIS of the Department of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems at Miami University. He assumed Raymond E. Glos Professor in Business from 2005–2007 and was a department chair from 1995–2005. After receiving his PhD in MIS and MS in Computer Sciences in 1985, professor Yen is active in research. He has published books and articles which have appeared in Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, Information Sciences, Computer Standards and Interfaces, Information Society, Omega, International Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, and Communications of AIS among others. Professor Yen’s research interests include data communications, electronic/mobile commerce, and systems analysis and design.
Shin-Yuan Hung is a Professor of Information Systems at National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. He was a visiting scholar of the MIS Department at the University of Arizona during summer 2007–spring 2008. Prior to the leave, he had been the Secretary General of the same university. Dr. Hung received his bachelor degree in Statistics from the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan and his master and doctoral degrees in Information Systems from the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. His current research interests include decision support systems, knowledge management, electronic commerce, and data mining. He has published a number of papers in Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Information Technology & People, Expert Systems with Applications, Government Information Quarterly, Computer Standard and Interfaces, Industrial Management and Data Systems, and Journal of Chinese Information Management. Dr. Hung is the current president of the International Chinese Information Systems Association.
Albert H. Huang is an Associate Professor of MIS at the University of Pacific, Stockton, California. His research interests include human–computer interaction, telecommunications management, sustainable IT development, and hardware virtualizations. He has published articles in Information & Management, Communications of the AIS, Communications of the ACM, Journal of Organizational and End-User Computing, and other research journals.