The Challenge of Researcher-Centric Communication Channel Research
A challenge to research on how and why people use different communication channels (e.g., why choose to email when you could use the telephone?) is in classifying different channels into similar groups. For example, we could classify email and text messaging together because they are both text-based, or email and voicemail together because they are both asynchronous, or text messaging and voicemail because they are both mobile or limited in length. (And there are numerous other groupings – text messages are technically asynchronous, and email is becoming quite mobile.) We must both define characteristics of the channel in order to group them, but also make justifications for what qualities are used to group. For example, if trying to understand how someone chooses a channel in the case of an urgent message, we might group by synchronicity or feedback potential. But in the case of a different type of message, other grouping factors may be more important.
In short, these complications make the field a mess, yet research continues to use problematic paradigms of grouping. Specifically, the problematic concept is that of “affordances,” functions that the specific channel can be used for. The prevailing definition of affordance is from Don Norman, who suggests that affordances are perceived by the user, rather than solely inherent in the channel. This definition is a vast improvement, but few researchers live up to it. How can one depend on the perceptions of the user, if each user can be different in what she perceives the channel can do? Adding further problems, theories like channel expansion theory suggest that, as user familiarity with the channel increases, so too do the number of functions the user perceives possible. Experience changes perception of the channel? How can we ever hope to group successfully based on these fickle distinctions?
Instead of relying on user perception, then, researchers have been forced to rely on their own intuition and expertise. This isn’t always a bad thing and various phenomena have been constructed around a researcher-centric view of communication channels. For example, widely supported is the phenomenon of increased self-disclosure over mediated channels; that is, when users communicate in channels with reduced cues (usually written channels), they are more likely to spontaneously self-disclose information about themselves. This has been observed without taking the user’s perception of channel affordances into consideration.
But other times, a researcher-centric perspective falls short. One particular area where this is true is in explanations for the popularity of a channel. Take, for example, the decline in popularity of instant messaging software and the increase in popularity of text messaging. The usual explanation for this change goes something like this. First, researchers like Ling (2010) have suggested that the need to communicate often and with many people is a life-stage phenomenon; in other words, we want to do it when we are young, and then we grow out of it. Second, more and more people have cell phones with text messaging capability and younger people are more likely to have cell phones than ever before. Third, it is easy to observe and construct various advantages of using a cell phone over a computer, mostly more privacy, mobility, and access; that is, no one knows you are texting under the covers late at night. With these factors in place, it is easy to see why young people switched their allegiance from IM to SMS.
This explanation, however, falls short when we look at some data that shows a year-to-year decline in rates of text messaging. As reported by the New York Times Bits Blog, countries like Finland and Australia and provinces like Hong Kong all reported declines in text messages this year, some as steep as 14%, during peak traffic times (like Christmas Eve and Day). Text messaging continues to grow in popularity in the United States, but the rate is slowing.
Why is this? Our explanations centered around the rise of text messaging seem to describe a platform that is a vast improvement over a previously popular channel. High penetration means you can text almost anyone. The privacy of mobile phones means mom and dad can’t be peaking over your shoulder. The portability means you can text anywhere and everywhere. And the phone is your own, not something that has to be shared. The high rates of text messaging (thousands of messages per month) seem to back up this explanation.
Or maybe this researcher-centric approach has it all wrong. One alternative explanation is that communication channel popularity is largely fad-based. This is supported, albeit indirectly, by research that suggests people are very adaptable to different channels. Restricted in the number of characters in the channel? People figure out ways to communicate effectively nonetheless. Restricted by time and space? Letters remain preserved as one of our best and most revealing communication channels. If emotions like love can blossom without ever meeting, it’s clear that humans can adapt to new channels.
And thus, if there aren’t really any advantages of text messaging over other channels (just differences), then (should rates of SMS continue to decline), we must look at how trends in channel popularity shape their use. Specifically, we must look at trends among the group that seems to have the most fickle relationship with communication channels: young people. This observation is backed up by our own experiences. When I was first using the internet, back in 1996-1997, I used a lot of email and sometimes visited chat rooms. Later, I used IM and continued using it through several years of college. By the time I finished college, I almost never used IM and had stopped engaging in unplanned conversations with friends online. Similarly, I never latched onto text messaging and use it infrequently. (I suspect the same trends may be true of new internet users who started using the internet around or before I did, no matter their age.)
The same trends can be observed with young people today. Rates of email use are on the decline among young people; it’s not a huge decline, but it is noticeable. Rates of IM use are down, at least in my own observations of people younger than me. Rates of texting had been up, but now may be falling. Rates of social networking website use have been steadily and dramatically rising, but the biggest growing groups are not young people any longer and some reports indicated a loss of members to website Facebook back in May of 2011. If text messages continue to decline, the best explanation for their popularity seems to be a trend-based one, not an affordances one.
This is the central problem with researcher-centric explanations for channel use. They do not account for changes in channel popularity. We can document no changes in perceptions of affordances and the channel itself has obviously not changed in its affordances. And if there is not a clear alternative channel that is better, we have no explanation for the rise in popularity for another channel; even when we do (as is the case of SMS over IM), the explanation becomes problematic when the channel’s popularity declines.
As to what can be done to rectify this research problem, I’ve yet to see anything compelling (or anything not compelling for that matter). But clearly, something needs to change if we expect our research to keep up with the (apparently) fickle preferences of communication technology users.
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