Why Did You/I Read but Not Reply? IM Users' Unresponded-to Read-receipt Practices and Explanations of Them

Abstract

We investigate instant-messaging (IM) users' sense-making and practices around read-receipts: a feature of IM apps for supporting the awareness of turn-taking, i.e., whether a message recipient has read a message. Using a grounded-theory approach, we highlight the importance of five contextual factors - situational, relational, interactional, conversational, and personal - that shape the variety of IM users' sense-making about read-receipts and strategies for utilizing them in different settings. This approach yields a 21-part typology comprising five types of senders' speculation about why their messages with read-receipts have not been answered; eight types of recipients' causes/reasons behind such non-response; and four types of senders' and recipients' subsequent strategies, respectively. Mismatches between senders' speculations about un-responded-to read-receipted messages (URRMs) and recipients' self-reported explanations are also discussed as sources of communicative friction. The findings reveal that, beyond indicating turn-taking, read-receipts have been leveraged as a strategic tool for various purposes in interpersonal relations.