SMS: EXPLOITING THE INTERACTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NEAR-SYNCHRONY

Abstract

This paper argues that near-synchrony creates interactional advantages for SMS and that these help to explain the popularity of the medium. The research included 32 interviews with adult mobile phone users, 24-hour communication diaries, and an analysis of respondents' text messages. Many of the text messages collected were short, phatic messages. These distinctive messages exploit the near-synchrony and brevity of SMS. Text messages combine low-contact threshold with immediate direct personal contact; consequently users can send 'thinking of you' messages, creating social connection with negligible effort and disruption. The near-synchrony of SMS also enables a distinctive form of conversation. In SMS conversation, the brevity of messages often creates ambiguity, but asynchrony limits scope for collaborative interpretation, making it harder to clarify meaning. However, instead of treating this as a problem for repair, users sometimes deliberately exploit this, using SMS as an equivocal, open-ended form of communication. The paper ends with a discussion of near-synchrony, contrasting SMS, email and instant messaging, and arguing that the temporal affordances of media are socially shaped and not technologically determined.