Instant Messaging Communication Research Articles

Applying short text topic models to instant messaging communication of software developers

When modeling topics from chat messages of developer instant messaging communication, individual chat messages are short text documents. Our study aims at understanding how short text topic models perform with conversations from developer instant messaging. We applied four models to nine Gitter chat rooms (with sizes ranging from ≈100 to ≈160,000 messages). To assess the quality of topics and identify the best performing models, we compared topics based on four metrics for topic coherence. Furthermore, for a subset of Gitter chat rooms we used two human-based assessments: intrusion tasks with 18 experts analyzing 40 topics each, and topic naming (assigning a name to a topic that summarizes its main concept) with eight additional experts naming 60 topics each. Models performed differently in terms of coherence metrics and human assessment depending on the corpus (small, medium or large chat room). Our findings offer recommendations for the selection and use of short text topic models with developer chat messages based on characteristics of models and their performance with different sizes of corpora, and based on different strategies to assess topic quality.

Enhancing Security and Privacy in Modern Text-Based Instant Messaging Communications

Enhancing Security and Privacy in Modern Text-Based Instant Messaging Communications

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer: Inferring Sensitive User Activities on Messaging Applications Through Traffic Analysis

Instant Messaging (IM) applications such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp have become tremendously popular in recent years. Unfortunately, such IM services have been targets of governmental surveillance and censorship, as these services are home to public and private communications on socially and politically sensitive topics. To protect their clients, popular IM services deploy state-of-the-art encryption. Despite the use of advanced encryption, we show that popular IM applications leak sensitive information about their clients to adversaries merely monitoring their encrypted IM traffic, with no need for leveraging any software vulnerabilities of IM applications. Specifically, we devise traffic analysis attacks enabling an adversary to identify participants of target IM communications (e.g., forums) with high accuracies. We believe that our study demonstrates a significant, real-world threat to the users of such services. <p xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">We demonstrate the practicality of our attacks through extensive experiments on real-world IM communications. We show that standard countermeasure techniques can degrade the effectiveness of these attacks. We hope our study will encourage IM providers to integrate effective traffic obfuscation into their software. In the meantime, we have designed a countermeasure system, called IMProxy that can be used by IM clients with no need for any support from IM providers. We demonstrate the effectiveness of IMProxy through simulation and experiments.

Does Being Ignored on WhatsApp Hurt? A Pilot Study on the Effect of a Newly Developed Ostracism Task for Adolescents.

(1) Background: Many studies have used a well-known social exclusion task, namely Cyberball, to assess the psychophysiological reactions to ostracism in laboratory settings. However, this task has been recently criticized for its lack of realism. Instant messaging communication platforms are currently central communication channels where adolescents conduct their social life. These should be considered when recreating the emotional experiences that fuel the development of negative emotions. To overcome this limitation, a new ostracism task, namely SOLO (Simulated On-Line Ostracism), recreating hostile interactions (i.e., exclusion and rejection) over WhatsApp was developed. The aim of this manuscript is to compare adolescents' self-reported negative and positive affect, as well as physiological reactivity (i.e., heat rate, HR; heart rate variability, HRV) exhibited during SOLO to Cyberball. (2) Method: A total of 35 participants (Mage = 15.16; SD = 1.48; 24 females) took part in the study. The first group (n = 23; transdiagnostic group), recruited at an inpatient and outpatient unit of a clinic for children and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychosomatic therapy in Baden-Württemberg (Germany), reported clinical diagnoses linked with emotional dysregulation (e.g., self-injury and depression). The second group (n = 12; control group), recruited in the district of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, had no pre-existing clinical diagnoses. (3) Results: The transdiagnostic group showed higher HR (b = 4.62, p < 0.05) and lower HRV (b = 10.20, p < 0.01) in SOLO than in Cyberball. They also reported increased negative affect (interaction b = -0.5, p < 0.01) after SOLO but not after Cyberball. In the control group, no differences in either HR (p = 0.34) or HRV (p = 0.08) between tasks were found. In addition, no difference in negative affect after either task (p = 0.83) was found. (4) Conclusion: SOLO could be an ecologically valid alternative to Cyberball when assessing reactions to ostracism in adolescents with emotional dysregulation.

What makes IM users (un)responsive: An empirical investigation for understanding IM responsiveness

Instant messaging (IM) communication has been widely studied due to its prevalence in our everyday communication. Numerous factors that contribute to (un)responsiveness have been identified. Yet an integrated view of the factors that influence IM responsiveness remains absent. This paper reports qualitative findings from interviews with 46 IM users, and identifies five main elements underlying IM users’ response decisions: response habits, need fulfillment, perceived obligation, perceived readiness/suitability, and pace/rhythm coordination. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integrated view of the key elements underlying IM responsiveness. Among these elements, we particularly highlight that regarding the influence of contextual factors on IM responsiveness, what may matters more is IM users’ perceptions of their readiness and suitability of the contexts, rather than the contexts’ objective properties. We also uncovered pace/rhythm coordination as a crucial factor behind IM responsiveness, which has been little discussed in the literature. Responsiveness, as our findings show, was often not a consequence, but a manifestation, of users’ pursuit of specific responsiveness-related aims such as ongoing shaping and sustaining of a dyad’s pace and rhythm.

Анализ потребительского поведения и предложения на рынке мобильных приложений

According to a sociological study in December 2021, an analysis was made of the consumer behavior of smartphone owners, an analysis of the supply and main business models of digital companies. It was found that young people spent about 8 hours a day in front of smartphone screens, of which 52% were on social networks and instant messaging and voice communication services and 12% on video hosting services, 7% on games, 4% on browsers, 5% on productivity apps, 1% on shopping, 1% on personal photos and videos, 18% on other applications. The main screen time is used by young people for unproductive purposes. It is necessary to regulate screen time, control the quality of information resources, conduct educational and explanatory work. The most popular and attention-consuming applications were social networks and video hosting, which collectively accounted for more than 58% of all screen time, an average of 5.8 hours per day. The business model of screen time companies is to advertise, collect and commercialize user data. The companies owning the majority of the main screen time applications were social networks. Digital platforms may own and operate infrastructure or provide a specific service on which merchants and developers depend. In the specific markets of digital goods, the efforts of business to monopolize are great. To protect competition, it is necessary to make adjustments to the antimonopoly legislation. The criteria for assessing the level of monopolization of the company’s market position, along with price and market share, are proposed to be expanded, such as network effects, switching costs, access to crucial data for competition, competitive pressure by innovation.

“You leave the chat with a different feeling than when you came in”. A Content Analysis about Negative Experiences Following Instant Messaging among Adolescents with and without a History of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury

BACKGROUND: Instant messaging platforms seem to positively contribute to adolescent emotional well-being. However, some scholars show a link between the use of these platforms and negative emotional experiences. These emotions could be perceived as even more overwhelming for certain subgroups of adolescents, such as those who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and lead to self-injury to deal with otherwise difficult to handle feelings.&#x0D; OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed at providing a deeper understanding of what kind of experiences during instant messaging communications are perceived as emotionally upsetting by adolescents with and without NSSI, and which situations could trigger NSSI thoughts or attempts in adolescents with lived experiences.&#x0D; METHOD: We used content analysis to analyze short interviews conducted with a total of 17 adolescents with and without lived experiences of NSSI.&#x0D; RESULTS: Our results showed that experience of Involvement in conflicts, and especially Name-calling and insults, triggered negative emotional experiences for most adolescents (76.5%). Interpersonal stressors like Name-calling and insults, Disagreements or arguments, Unwanted contact, Friendship break-up and “Ghosting” were identified as major triggers for NSSI.&#x0D; CONCLUSION: These findings could be used for the purpose of facilitating future research into mapping negative experiences adolescents have on instant messaging platforms, as well as used as a clinical guide to identify situations related to NSSI thoughts or episodes.

A qualitative analysis of themes in instant messaging communication of software developers

Software developers use instant messaging (e.g., Slack, Gitter) to collaboratively discuss software engineering problems and solutions. This communication takes place in chat rooms that generally contain a description of the main topic of discussion and the messages exchanged. To analyze whether and how the knowledge accumulated in these chat rooms is relevant to other developers, we first need to understand the themes discussed in these chat rooms. In this paper, we used thematic analysis to manually identify software engineering themes in the description of 87 chat rooms of Gitter, an instant messaging tool for software developers. Then, we checked whether these themes also occur in 184 public chat rooms of Slack, another instant messaging tool. We identified 47 themes in Gitter chat rooms, and regarding the applicability of themes, we could relate 36 of our themes to 173 Slack chat rooms. Our results indicate that, in the context of our study, chat rooms in developer instant messaging communication are mostly about software development technologies and practices rather than development processes. Furthermore, most chat rooms are topic- rather than project-related (e.g., a chat room used by developers of a particular software development project).

Semiotic Basis for the Use of Emoticons, Emojis and Stickers in Social Media Communication

Technological advancements and recent innovations and trends have affected virtually all aspects of human interactions to a great extent. An aspect of these innovations concerns the use of emoticons, emojis and stickers in instant messaging and other digital communication applications. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which the usage of emoticons, emojis and stickers has influenced communication on social media platforms; how well students use emoticons, emojis and stickers on social media; whether there are problems associated with the usage and attachment of meaning to these devices on social media and how such problems can be addressed. Data for the study was sourced through the administration of a questionnaire on fifty very active users of the social media who were randomly selected from among undergraduate students of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria. The responses to the questionnaire were analysed and interpreted using simple percentage, and the results are presented in tables. The findings of the study show that emoticons and emojis are prominent tools that encourage social media communications and interactions, and aid comprehension of messages among active social media users. The study recommends that measures be put in place by the controllers and administrators of social media to prevent negative or illicit usage of emoticons, emojis and stickers given that these devices can sometimes be vulgar, unofficial, misapplied and/or misinterpreted.

Mobile Instant Messaging Communication Etiquette: Educators’ Voices and Point of View

Communication using digital media has highly increased since the pandemic, including within education context. Different types of expectation between the involved parties sometimes causing communication challenge for both. This study aims to find out how educators viewed the courtesy shown by the students during interactions using instant messaging media. Specifically, it aims to find out politeness indicators, communication challenges, and educators’ expectations. The interview questions included the concept of appropriate and polite messages between students as well as the overall attitudes of students within WhatsApp communication. The interviews are transcribed and coded based on what is listed in the framework. The results of the study reveal that most lecturers agreed students are adept in establishing communication through WhatsApp, compared to those in the past by incorporating greetings to open a conversation, stating identity, thanking and closing to end the conversation. Aside from a small number of students having trouble following etiquette, challenges appeared mostly when educators did not set clear rules on what they expected regarding WhatsApp communication. Educators have lower expectations on WhatsApp use in non-academic context.

Yönetsel Amaçla Kurulmuş WhatsApp Gruplarının Akademisyenler Tarafından Değerlendirilmesine Yönelik Bir Durum Çalışması

Technological developments have enabled the traditional nature of communication to evolve into digital messaging. These developments gained momentum amid the COVID-19 process and brought instant messaging and social media communication to the forefront. WhatsApp, one of the most commonly used instant messaging applications for informal communication, has also started being favored more for formal communication in organizational management. WhatsApp has become a powerful professional communication tool that organizational administrators preferred, has become to serve organizational purposes as an alternative to formal information and document sharing platforms. This study aims to investigate whether WhatsApp messaging effectively serves organizational purposes in higher education, and evaluates how it is perceived and utilized by academicians. This case study is a type of qualitative research where the data collected from the workgroup are analyzed by descriptive analysis to obtain findings. Five main themes are derived from the analysis; namely group structure and characteristics, communication, cooperation, psycho-social impact, negative opinions, and related ten sub-themes were detected. According to the results derived from the study, most of the participants expressed mostly positive and some negative perceptions regarding the communication made through the WhatsApp groups established for administrative purposes.

What drives changes in expressive social media use for generational cohorts?

Extant literature has often focused on digital citizenship amongst youths in particular instances and contexts, but is limited in addressing how such citizenship compare to other generational cohorts. Examining political expression as a particular form of actualising citizenship, the paper utilises a longitudinal approach to explore the effects of changes in political efficacy, media use, political knowledge, media trust and political talk on political expression – and the differences between generational cohorts over two general elections in Singapore. Findings indicate that while changes in mass media use, social media use, trust in instant messaging and personal communications and political talk were positively associated with changes in political expression as a whole, changes in political knowledge and trust in mass media negatively predicted political expression. With different effects observed for different generational cohorts of citizens, findings from the study contribute to deeper understandings of practices of actualising citizenship over time.

Associations of Face-to-Face and Instant Messaging Family Communication and Their Contents With Family Wellbeing and Personal Happiness Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BackgroundBoth face-to-face and instant messaging (IM) communication are important for families, but face-to-face communication has reduced amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the use and contents of both communication methods amidst the pandemic, their associations with family wellbeing and personal happiness, and the mediation effects of communication quality in Hong Kong Chinese adults.MethodsThis population-based online survey enrolled 4,921 respondents in May 2020, who reported (i) any face-to-face or IM family communication when the pandemic was severe; (ii) communication contents being classified as neutral, positive, supportive, and negative; and (iii) communication quality, family wellbeing and personal happiness (score 0–10). Associations of family wellbeing and personal happiness with communication methods and contents (no communication excluded) were examined using linear regressions (β), adjusting for each other, sex, age, socioeconomic status, and the number of cohabitants. Mediating effects of communication quality on these associations were examined. Prevalence estimates were weighted by sex, age, and education of the general population. Interactions of methods and contents were examined.ResultsOf 4,891 included respondents (female: 52.9%, 45–54 years: 37.7%, ≥65 years: 21.3%), 7.1% reported no communication, 12.7% face-to-face communication only, 26.7% IM only, and 53.4% both methods. More males and those at younger ages, had lower socioeconomic status, or fewer cohabitants showed no family communication or face-to-face only. More respondents reported neutral (83.1–99.3%) than positive (42.1–62.2%), supportive (37.5–54.8%), and negative (10.9–34.5%) contents despite communication methods. Communication quality was higher with both methods than IM only, face-to-face only, and no communication (scores: 6.7 vs. 4.5–6.6, all P ≤ 0.02). Better family wellbeing and personal happiness were associated with using IM only (adjusted βs: 0.37 and 0.48) and both methods (0.37 and 0.42) than face-to-face only, and positive (0.62 and 0.74) or supportive (0.45 and 0.46) contents (all P ≤ 0.001). Communication quality mediated 35.2–93.5% of these associations. Stronger associations between positive contents and family wellbeing showed in both methods and face-to-face only than IM only (P for interaction = 0.006).ConclusionsWe have first shown that, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, family IM communication and positive and supportive contents may promote family wellbeing and personal happiness. People with no family communication may need assistance.

Talking during a test?! Embracing mobile instant messaging during assessment

This study reports on the incorporation of mobile instant messaging (MIM) in assessments, as a collaborative learning tool, to enable students to socially construct knowledge and develop their collaborative problem solving competence, while being assessed individually. In particular, this study explores: what is the extent and timing of students’ use of MIM to communicate with other students while being assessed individually? What communicative activities are evident in the content of students’ MIM communications while being assessed individually? How do students experience being able to use MIM while being assessed individually? The results of this study’s analysis of the messages sent during various assessments suggests that when incorporating MIM into assessments, instructors should consider the objective of those assessments together with the nature (e.g. essay style) and the stakes of the assessments as these appear to influence the extent, timing and content of the instant messaging communications by the students during the assessment. A survey of the students suggested that their experiences of being able to use MIM during assessments were largely positive due to the learning opportunities, collaboration and teamwork, authenticity and equity that the introduction of instant messaging during assessment enabled.

Patient-accessible test reports in times of instant messaging communication: progress or an additional emotional burden?

Technological developments, such as patient-accessible electronic health records (EHR) and instant messaging communication, are disrupting inventions that are deeply affecting century-old patient–physician communication. We need to consider whether these new technologies could be producing more harms than benefits to patients with severe conditions (eg, advanced cancer), as reflected in the following examples.

1399Associations of family wellbeing with face-to-face and instant messaging family communication amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundFace-to-face communication has reduced amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the associations between family communication and family wellbeing.MethodsIn an online survey of the Hong Kong Jockey Club SMART Family-Link Project in May 2021, 4981 Hong Kong Chinese adults (mean age 43.5 years, response rate 24.3%) reported family communication methods of face-to-face and instant messaging (IM) when the COVID-19 pandemic was severe (yes/no), communication contents that were neutral, positive, supportive, and negative (yes/no), and communication quality (0-10). The associations of family wellbeing (health, happiness, and harmony, 0-10) with communication methods and contents were examined using linear regression (β), adjusting for each other, sex, age, socioeconomic status, and number of cohabitants. The mediating effects of communication quality on these associations were examined. Prevalence estimates were weighted by sex, age and education of general population.Results7.1% respondents reported no communication, 12.7% face-to-face only, 26.7% IM only, and 53.4% both. More communication contents were neutral (range 83.1-99.3%) than positive (42.1-62.2%), supportive (37.5-54.8%), and negative (10.9-34.5%). Communication quality was highest in using both methods (6.7 vs 4.5-6.6, all P≤0.02). Better family wellbeing was associated with using IM only (adjusted β: 0.37) and both methods (0.37) than face-to-face only and with positive (0.62) and supportive (0.45) contents (all P≤0.001). Communication quality mediated 35.2-93.5% of these associations.ConclusionsBetter family wellbeing was associated with IM and face-to-face communication and their contents, partly through communication quality.Key messagesFamily IM communication with positive and supportive contents may enhance family wellbeing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

WhatsApp group as a shared resource for coping with political violence: The case of mothers living in an ongoing conflict area

In recent years, mobile media applications have become a significant resource for crisis communication and communal coping during natural disasters and wars. Drawing on communal coping and media affordance research, we examined the roles that a WhatsApp group plays for mothers living in an ongoing conflict area. We examined, through in-depth interviews, a local WhatsApp group operating in a community adjacent to the Israel–Gaza border. Findings revealed the unique emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies people use when facing ongoing threats. Four affordances—immediacy, reachability, mobility, and multimediality—contributed to WhatsApp’s role as a shared and ubiquitous coping resource. This study demonstrates the ways in which instant messaging communication affordances contribute to communal coping strategies in ongoing conflict areas.

How Do Instant Messages Reduce Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors?-Mediation of Engagement and Moderation of Self-Control.

Enabling people to send and receive short text-based messages in real-time, instant messaging (IM) is a communication technology that allows instantaneous information exchanges. The development of technology makes IM communication widely adopted in the workplace, which brings a series of changes for modern contemporary working life. Based on the conservation of resource theory (COR), this paper explores the mechanism of workplace IM communication on employees’ psychological withdrawal, and investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship and the moderating role of self-control. Using the experience sampling method (ESM), a 10-consecutive workdays daily study was conducted among 66 employees. By data analysis of 632 observations using SPSS and HLM, results found that: (1) IM demands had a positive relation with emotion and cognitive engagement. (2) Emotion and cognitive engagement were negatively correlated with psychological withdrawal. (3) Emotion and cognitive engagement mediated the relations of IM demands and psychological withdrawal. (4) Self-control moderated the relationship between emotional engagement and psychological withdrawal.

The Quality of Video Communication in Encrypted Traffic

Abstract The rapid development of network and computer technologies creates opportunities for offering advanced broadband multimedia services to a growing number of end users. Instant messaging and group communication services based on real-time video transmission based on global Internet resources are the most popular. The basic challenge related to the implementation of video transmission services is to ensure an appropriate level of quality and security (Quality &amp; Security). The article presents a multi-criteria assessment of the impact of encryption protocols for multimedia video transmissions on the perceived quality of QoE (Quality of Experience) service implementation. The presented measurement method together with the proposed research methodology create the possibility of determining the likelihood of video service availability with accepted QoE in heterogeneous networks.

What determines instant messaging communication? Examining the impact of person- and situation-level factors on IM responsiveness

Acknowledging that the way mobile communication is used is shaped by socially negotiated social norms, this study examined the factors that impact instant messaging (IM) communication at the person and situation levels using the experience sampling method (ESM). We measured how the characteristics at the person level (i.e., availability and responsiveness preferences), contextual factors (i.e., location and copresence of others), and message-related attributes (i.e., sender and chat type) impact users’ responsiveness in IM communication. The study empirically investigated a sample of 90 smartphone users who completed 820 ESM protocols regarding their use of the messenger service WhatsApp. The results of the multilevel analyses revealed that users’ responsiveness in IM communication is affected by person- and situation-level factors, but the latter factors were found to have a much stronger impact. The effect of specific influential factors is discussed in detail.