TM NRML - Poster 2

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Interpersonal communication is a key part of human life. People are affected hundreds of times a day by interpersonal communication. In the rapidly evolving technological climate of the 21st century, technology has a profound effect on that communication. Texting is one of those influences. College students studied by Trudy Hanson, et. al. reported texting 14.35 hours per week compared with 6.49 talking of the phone (Hanson, et al, 2011). In a study using 982 participants in the UK, 72% reported sending a combined total of over 1 billion text messages in a month’s time, each message averaging at 160 characters (Fraser, Reid, 2004). Method Discussion Texting, Are They Getting The Message? Bormacoff, M., Lenz, N., Hereford, R., Peterson, L. Azusa Pacific University References Literature Review Results Participants were 23 undergraduate and graduate students who were recruited to participate in a survey regarding their texting activities. The 9 undergraduate students and 18 graduate students were from three different California colleges. The sample included 10 men and 13 women who ranged in age from 18 to 35 years. According to the research, text messaging was the secondary method of communication at 30%. The results were different then the researchers had anticipated and revealed that college students prefer to use face-to-face communication and that text messaging is not their primary method of communication. Chart #2 shows the responses to the question, “On average, how many text messages do you send per week? The results showed the 61% of the participants send more than 76 text messages. It appears that the results of the study did not support the initial prediction. It appears that a majority (61%) of the population sends over 50 text messages per week, yet 61% indicated that in the past week they have not had to clarify a text message they had sent. Over 56% of the participants indicated their primary method of communication was face-to-face communication. Adams, J., Baker, K., Daufin, E.K., Ellington, C., Emanuel, R., Fitts, E., Himsel, J., Holladay, L. & Okeowo D. (2008). How college students…

Literature Review:

Literature Review Interpersonal communication is a key part of human life. People are affected hundreds of times a day by interpersonal communication. In the rapidly evolving technological climate of the 21st century, technology has a profound effect on that communication. Texting is one of those influences. College students studied by Trudy Hanson, et. al. reported texting 14.35 hours per week compared with 6.49 talking of the phone (Hanson, et al, 2011). In a study using 982 participants in the UK, 72% reported sending a combined total of over 1 billion text messages in a month’s time, each message averaging at 160 characters (Fraser, Reid, 2004). Texting is used mainly in personal relationships. In a study on text messaging and connectedness, 19 couples were interviewed reporting that 61% of their messages were relational. 57% of their texts were some form of interpersonal maintenance. Texts were used for passing along information, making plans, and sending an encouraging word or affirmation. Picture messaging was used to aid in making decisions while shopping, as well as to let someone in on an experience (Pettigrew, 2009). A large-scale study based in the U.S. chose 70 university students, collecting over 60,000 text messages over a 4-month period. The results showed that these university students held up to 9 conversations simultaneously with friends via text on a regular basis (Battenstini, et al, 2010)

Literature Review:

Literature Review Part of the draw of text messaging has to do with its’ ease of use when compared with placing or answering calls. Multiple studies cited ease of use as a factor in people’s preference of texting over talking (Smith & Williams, 2004;Leung, 2007; Hemmer, 2009). Even when looking at the ways people would like to communicate with health care professionals, texting appears to be an option that people are open to trying (Kharbanda, 2009). But in some populations it appears that texting by itself is not an indicator of greater participation in treatment (Robinson, et al 2006). In 2008, Riley, Obermayer, and Jean-Mary used text messaging as an intervention for college smokers. 31 College students who wanted to quit smoking used a text messaging program designed to encourage them to abstain from smoking. 45% reported restraint based on continued verification. Those who continued to smoke reported smoking less after using the texting program (Riley, Obermayer, Jean-Mary, 2008). While text messaging is convenient, and in many ways helpful, there are also some downfalls to relying on text messaging. The intended context of the messages has the potential to be misinterpreted; the length of time between the messages has the potential to cause one to feel ignored or uncomfortable, and can attack ones self-esteem as well as their sense of belonging. (Smith & Williams, 2004) Texting has added a new element to conversing face to face. Additional to the interruption of taking a call during a conversation, it has now become a social norm to text while talking to someone in person or on the phone.

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Literature Review With text messaging, comes a lack of social cues that are normally received through facial expressions, body language, and tonal inflections. The absence of these cues can make it difficult to grasp the intended context of the message. According to a study on the new language that texting and instant messaging has created (Varnhagen et al.,2009), emoticons such as a sad face or the use of a descriptive word such as, “awww” are used to substitute facial expressions and help to clarify the message. The downside to using emoticons is that the recipient of the text message must be familiar with the variety of emoticons used. Some companies such as Samsung have even added an emoticon key to their Smartphone’s that pulls up a list of expressions to add to the text message. While adding emoticons to text messaging helps, it does not completely eliminate the need for clear messages and face-to-face communication. In order to reduce miscommunication, John Wiley (2010) created an interpersonal guide for text messaging. Covering key points such as avoiding sarcasm, assumption, how to text in context, knowing when to be casual and when to be formal. With the popularity of text messaging reaching across all boundary lines, it is safe to say that this form of communication has become a permanent aspect of our culture. Additional research on this topic will expand and deepen our knowledge about how texting influences our daily communication. The present study was conducted in order explore the correlation between the number of text message sent by college students and the number of times they felt their message were misinterpreted.

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Method Participants Participants were 23 undergraduate and graduate students who were recruited to participate in a survey regarding their texting activities. The 9 undergraduate students and 18 graduate students were from three different California college campuses. The sample included 10 men and 13 women. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 35 years ( M age = 24 yr., and SD = 3.5 yr.). Each of the participants had either a social or an academic connection to at least one of the four researchers. Materials All participants had a valid email address and access to personal computers. Access to both email and personal computer were essential for each participant to complete a survey, which was created and conducted using SurveyMonkey, an online survey company. Procedure Once the original hypothesis was refined to fall within IRB guidelines the research team developed a ten-item questionnaire that included both qualitative and quantitative questions related to individual’s texting activity. The survey, along with the written notification of the research perimeters, was then submitted for ORIA approval. Following ORIA approval, participants were sent an email with the ORIA heading, a written informed consent and a web link to the SurveyMonkey survey. Participants were instructed to complete the survey it within 2 weeks.

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Results Of the 23 survey links sent out, all 23 individuals completed the survey within the first week. The data results were then compiled and calculated using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Over 56% of the participants indicated their primary method of communication was face-to-face communication. According to chart #1, text messaging was the secondary method of communication at 30%. The results were different then the researchers had anticipated and revealed that college students prefer to use face-to-face communication and that text messaging is not their primary method of communication. Chart #2 shows the responses to the question, “On average, how many text messages do you send per week (totals may be listed on monthly phone bill or obtained directly from your phone)? The results showed the 61% of the participants send more than 76 text messages per week indicating that this population sends text messages quite frequently. Chart #2 provided the information the researchers had expected to find. Chart #3 shows the responses to the statement, “I _______ proofread my text messages before I hit the SEND key (Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Frequently, Always).” The results indicated that participants frequently proofread their messages and rarely, if ever, send a text message without proofreading it. This was an essential question since is important to know if participants read over their text messages or just send them without thinking twice about it. The table of quantitative results provides the means and standard deviations for 4 of our 10 survey questions answered by participants. For the second question on the table discussing the average text messages per week, the mean = 2.7 and the standard deviation = 1.10 indicating the data points are far from the mean. This indicates the higher amount of text messages sent as discussed earlier. Question #4, “During the last week, I have had to clarify text messages I sent” (yes/no), had the lowest standard deviation of 0.5 and a mean of 1.6, indicating that a majority of the participants answered the same. 61% of participants responded that they have not had to clarify text messages they sent in the last week

Results:

Results Qualitative responses were obtained by asking open-ending questions in the survey. The researchers wanted to find out what participants thought were the advantages and disadvantages of sending a high volume of text messages each week. This helped the research team understand why individuals choose to use text messaging when communicating with others. Participants reported that the speed and ease of communication was a primary advantage of sending a high volume of communication. They stated that It is much easier and faster to send a text message than to call someone to get the point of the conversation across. Another advantage written by participants was that they are able to continue their conversations with people throughout the day rather than having to have a quick conversation about the topic of discussion and ending the call. The majority of people today are quite busy and text messaging allows people to maintain contact without wasting a lot of precious time. A majority of participants stated the disadvantages to sending a high volume of text messages per week was the lack of face-to-face interaction with the people receiving the messages along with the inability to decipher emotions. Based on participant comments, it appears that participants see too much text messaging as potentially dangerous to their personal relationships. The final disadvantage stated was the misinterpretation of the context of the conversation. One participant commented, “Subtext can easily get lost in text messages, and what is meant as a joke can easily be understood as an insult or simply not be funny. It's hard to convey all the nuances of communication simply through text message.” The results of this study show that it is difficult to determine whether the advantages of communicating through texting outweigh the disadvantages.

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Chart #1

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Chart #2

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Chart #3

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Table

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Discussion It appears that the results of the study did not support the initial prediction. It appears that a majority (61%) of the population sends over 50 text messages per week, yet 61% indicated that in the past week they have not had to clarify a text message that they have sent. This appears to indicate that although students are sending a high volume of text messages they are not experiencing a high level of communication errors. The study is lacking in its ability to represent accurately what types of errors the participants who are experiences errors are experiencing. Thirty-nine percent of the participants indicated they had to clarify a text message sent in the past week. What is unclear is for what reason they had to clarify. There was some indication in the qualitative responses that subtext may be lost in a text message conversation, and that emotion likewise may be difficult to determine through text. Though these responses appeared in the qualitative responses there are not quantitative measures in place to determine if this was the cause of any of other participant’s communication errors. It appears the study could benefit from some expansion the measures and quantifies the reason for the communication errors that necessitated 39% of the participants to make the clarifications to their text messages. Another difficulty in this study is the inability to generalize the results to a larger population. Anecdotally speaking, it appears that younger age groups are more technically savvy and reliant than older age groups. These results may not generalize well into populations that have such a disparity in their usage of technology to communicate. The relevance of this data would be higher if there had been delineation of the communication errors between those who sent more than 50 messages per week and those who sent less. At this point all that is clear is that a majority (61%) of our participants send more than 50 messages per week and a majority (61%) of our participants did not have to clarify messages, indicating they did not have the high level of communication errors as the researchers had suspected. If there had been that delineation it would be much easier to make the correlation between an increase in text message sending and the increase in communication errors. At this point the data suggests that an increase in text messaging does not necessarily mean an increase in communication errors. Participants responded in the qualitative section that text messaging leaves room for communication error, subtext and emotion, but the study did not indicate if these were the causes of any of the 39% of participant’s clarified messages.

Discussion:

Discussion This study indicates the need for further research in the area of text message communication. The study found that participants did in fact experience some communication errors, but it did not indicate whether those errors could be attributed to an increase in text message communication, or the tendency of text message communication to make the interpretation of emotion and subtext more difficult that through face-to-face communication. Further study should make an effort to delineate between these two causes of communication errors. Additional research should also include a wider variety in age, technological communication usage, and technological knowledge. These added variables will help to expand the population thereby increasing the potential to generalize the findings to a larger population.

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References Adams, J., Baker, K., Daufin, E.K., Ellington, C., Emanuel, R., Fitts, E., Himsel, J., Holladay, L. & Okeowo D. (2008). How college students spend their time communicating. International Journal of Listening, 22(1), 13-28. Battestini, Agathe, Setlur, Vidya, Sohn, Timothy (2010) A Large Scale Study of Text Messaging Use. Nokia Research Center. Cell Phones, Text Messaging, and Facebook: Competing Time Demands of Today's College Students. College Teaching, Volume 59, Issue 1 January 2011, pages 23 – 30 Hemmer, Heidi (2009). Impact of Text Messaging on Communication. Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2009 Kharbanda, E.O., et. al. (2009). Text4Health: A Qualitative Evaluation of Parental Readiness for Text Immunization Reminders. American Journal of Public Health | December 2009, Vol 99, No. 12 Leung, L. (2007). Unwillingness-to-communicate and college students‟ motives in SMS mobile messaging . Telematics & Informatics, 24(2), 115-129. Pettigrew, J. (2009). Text Messaging and Connectedness Within Close Interpersonal Relationships. Marriage & Family Review, Vol. 45, 697-716. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from PsychInfo database. Reid, Donna, Reid, Fraser (2004) Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Text Messaging. University of Plymouth Riley, W., Obermayer, J., Jean-Mary, J. (2008). Internet and Mobile Phone Text Messaging Intervention for College Smokers. JOURNAL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH, VOL. 57, NO. 2 Robinson, S. et. al. (2006). Aftercare Intervention Through Text Messaging in the Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa--Feasability Pilot. International Journal of Eating Disorders 39:8 633–638 2006 Sanders, R. E. (1984). Style, Meaning and Message Effects. Communication Monographs, Vol. 51, 154-167. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from PsychINFO Database.

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References Smith, A., & Williams, K. D. (2004). RU There? Ostracism by Cell Phone Text Messages. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, Vol. 8, No. 4, 291-301 . Retrieved March 2, 2011, from PsycArticles Database. Vamagen, Connie K., McFall, Peggy, E.G., Pugh, Nicole, et. A. (2009). lol: new language and spelling in instant messaging Reading and Writing Volume 23, Number 6 , 719-733 Wiley, John (2010). Interpersonal Guidelines for Texting. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 7(4): 358–361