whatsup with whatsapp? comparing mobile instant messaging behaviors with traditional sms
TRANSCRIPT
What’s up with Comparing Mobile Instant Messaging Behaviors with Traditional SMS
Karen Church Yahoo! Labs
Rodrigo de Oliveira Telefonica Research
Presented at Mobile HCI 2013 - 30th August 2013, Munich, Germany
How and why people (teenagers) have adopted SMS in their daily lives, e.g Grinter & Eldridge 2001 & 2003, Taylor & Harper 2002
Different countries and demographics, e.g. Ito 2005, Kasesniemi & Rautiainen 2002, Kim et al 2007, Battestini et al. 2010
Past research on SMS behaviors
• MIM application for smartphones
• Runs on many mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc)
• No cost • Requires data plan/
internet connection
John (P1) 36
Phd Student 2 years
Mike (P2) 29
Mobile dev 2 years
Oliver (P3) 35
HR Developer 2 years
Dean (P7) 31
Researcher 1 year
Eric (P8) 40
Project Mgr 3 years
Cathy (P4) 24
HR Intern 2 years
Laura (P5) 45
Teacher 3 months
Beth (P3) 36
Business owner 2.5 years
Ann (P9) 30 PA
2 years
Phase 1: 9 participants
Icon source: http://www.thenounproject.com
1. Review of daily communication needs
2. Perceived value of WhatsApp, reason for adoption and history of use
3. Motives and intent of SMS and WhatsApp focusing on factors like cost, trust, privacy
Phase 1: Interview
Phase 2: Survey
1. Expected behavior
2. Actual usage behavior (reported)
3. Two groups:
• SMS payers (N=71)
• SMS nonpayers (N=60)
Image source: http://lighthouse8.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/people.jpg
“ “
Using WhatsApp is a guarantee the other party won’t pay. I might not care. And now I don’t care because sending SMS for me is unlimited but maybe other people care.
57 % SMS Payers believe they would not change their frequency of SMS usage even if SMS was free (χ2 = 19, 803, p < .001)
Negative Correlations
• between paying for SMS and frequency of SMS usage with clients (ρ = −.35, p < .01) and for business purposes (ρ = −.22, p = .03).
Positive Correlations
• Paying for SMS and frequency of WhatsApp usage with family members (ρ = .20, p = .03) and for planning/coordinating social activities (ρ = .18, p < .05).
41 % SMS Payers reported not seeing any value in SMS compared to WhatsApp
22 % SMS Non-Payers reported not seeing any value in SMS compared to WhatsApp
“ “
I was using SMS and everyone had WhatsApp and everyone was saying, you are the last one and it costs money to talk with you so get WhatsApp
“ “
With WhatsApp maybe you type more, but the conversation is more fluid. You type a sentence and someone sends a sentence and then you type another one. I have the feeling that if it’s WhatsApp, it’s an open conversation. It is similar to if you were talking in person
“ “ I can say much more things than 120 characters and I don’t have to think about the whole message. I can be more natural
6 different intents
1. Chatting, 2. Planning/coordination of social activities, 3. Sharing personal news, 4. Interacting with groups of people, 5. Business/work related communications, 6. Receiving ads
Less than once per month
About once per month
About once per week
Several times per week
About once per day
Several times per day
“ “ WhatsApp for me is very informal so it’s friends and family. SMS is formal, with clients and then my friends and family who don’t have WhatsApp
• Used significantly more often than SMS across all communities (p < .01)
• Used most often with partners than any other community (p < .01)
• Higher frequency of usage with family, close friends and friends than with work colleagues or clients (p < .001)
“ “ I tend to think that SMS is not as fast as WhatsApp. I don’t know why but I think maybe people are more aware of WhatsApp and not so aware of SMS
“ “ people read too much into when you’re online and when you replied to messages or why you didn’t reply and they try to guess why and sometimes this is annoying
“ “ I don’t like it very much because if I don’t want to answer straight away, I don’t want them to know that I’ve seen the message
“ “
If I send a message and you are busy at least answer and say that you’re busy...... if you’re online, it sort of means that it’s in front of you and you are doing other stuff and you are ignoring me...
Reasons included
• SMS is a paid service and money increases reliability of a service
• SMS is an older, more established service
• For others it depended on their past experience with one service or another – Bad past experience = bad perception
“ “ It’s happened to me that I’ve sent messages and they arrived very late, like 1 day or 2 days late
Choice of SMS or WhatsApp?
• Does the recipient have WhatsApp?
• Is it formal? Or informal communication?
• Do I want or need the message to be delivered immediately?
Negative Correlations
• between how often participants use WhatsApp with clients and how often they turn on the phone’s silent mode (ρ = −.41, p = .001)
Business communications
• Frequency of using WhatsApp for business is reversely related to the frequency of muting phone notifications (ρ = −.23, p = .02).
• Same for using SMS for business (ρ = −.29, p = .006)
WhatsApp use in general….
1. Used more often, closer-knit groups
2. More conversational
3. Perceived as more immediate
4. More chatting and on-the-fly planning
Image source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/01/mobile-messaging-apps_n_2991747.html
1. Privacy concerns and last access
2. Delivery notifications, i.e. 2 ticks
3. Increased expectations of fast response
Problems with WhatsApp
Future work
1. Explore behavior by combining logging of real-life usage with reported usage
2. Different demographics and cultures
3. How to handle abundance of mobile notifications?
thank you! Qs? Karen Church
www.karenchurch.com [email protected]
@karenchurch
Full Paper available here - http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2493225 Images from - http://www.sxc.hu or where acknowledged