Study: Instant Messaging is Surprisingly Formal (from ATSNN), page 1

posted on Mar, 17 2005 @ 04:39 PM

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IM (instant messaging) is more formal than you might believe. Instant messaging is a relatively new type of communications, in which two people exchange typed messages instantaneously through the Internet. Although written, the fact that instant messaging is more immediate and direct than email, it makes it seem more like speech than writing.

www.livescience.com
Take this with a wink and a LOL: IM is more formal than you might think. But hey, guys, your punctuation stinks.

Instant messaging (IM) is a relatively new form of communication, in which two people exchange typed messages instantaneously over the Internet. Although written, the fact that IM is more immediate and direct than email makes it seem more like speech than writing.

But a recent study of IM-ing by college students found that the communication was more formal – in use of vocabulary and abbreviations – than might be expected in a speech-like medium. The research also uncovered significant differences in how men and women use the medium.

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I use AIM (an IM service) all of the time. This study is really a great piece of information to share with other people. Another great piece of information that you might like to share is the fact that 90 percent of the time, the females are using a more schooled standard writing style and that men end their IM sessions more than twice more quickly than females.

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dgtempe

posted on Mar, 17 2005 @ 05:24 PM

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And..Is big brother reading up on us?

Thats scary.

College students? I got a little paranoid for a minute!

[edit on 17-3-2005 by dgtempe]

joey

posted on Mar, 17 2005 @ 06:43 PM

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My husband and I must be the anomoly in this study.
We met, on the internet, in Jan. 1999, and IM'd at least 4 hours each evening until May when we finally met.
We married in May 2000.
WE weren't formal!

joey

Watcher_Don

posted on Mar, 17 2005 @ 06:56 PM

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I would guess that they are talking about things like sentence structure and the absence of some of the more ungrammatical elements of speech. In an IM convo, people are more likely to say, "So Tracy asked if we were going to the movies tomorrow" than "So Tracy's, like, 'you goin tooda movies?' and I'm like..." I don't think it was necessarily touching upon the formality of the subject matter discussed.