Consequences of IM on Presence Awareness and Interruptions

Technology has changed the way we communicate in the workplace; new and improved computer-mediated communication tools are available for our use, and media choice has become an issue (Cameron & Webster, 2005). Nowadays it is hard to decide what communication tool to use or how we convey messages when using certain media (Trevino, Daft, & Lengel, 1990). Instant messaging (IM) is a computer-mediated tool that is used to send and receive text messages in a synchronous manner using the Internet. IM has become a common channel of communication between family members and friends (Goldsborough, 2001); almost 53 million adult Americans trade instant messages, and 24% of them swap IM more frequently than e-mail (Shiu & Lenhart, 2004). After seeing this tool’s usefulness, managers are beginning to introduce it in the workplace as an informal way to communicate; at the same time, IM seems to bring unintended (though not necessarily negative) consequences like presence awareness (Cameron & Webster, 2005) and interruptions (Rennecker & Godwin, 2005). Various theoretical frameworks have been used to study IM, mostly in the fields of communications and electronic monitoring (Cameron & Webster, 2005), many of which utilize qualitative methods. Very few empirical studies are published in this area, and those available are written by IM vendors or IM developers using colleagues as their main subjects of study (Cameron & Webster, 2005). This article studies IM’s effects on interruptions and presence awareness, as well as the effect presence awareness has on interruptions. For the statistical analysis a subset of 111 elements of the February 2004 PEW Internet and American Life surveys dataset was used as a sample. PLS Graph software was used to create the structural model and test the relationships between the constructs Interruptions (INT), Presence Awareness (AWA), and use of IM in the workplace (IMW). Background and hYPothEsEs