Instant Messaging, Page 2
‘IM Me’: Instant Messaging as Relational Maintenance and Everyday Communication
Social and personal relationships are maintained through a variety of mechanisms.
Historically, relational partners have augmented their face-to-face interactions with written forms
of communication including cards and letters. The increased availability of the telephone at the
turn of the twentieth century later provided another instrument for sustaining relationships
through more immediate exchanges particularly when partners were geographically separated.
This trend continues today with the development of interactive communication technologies.
From its beginnings, the Internet has taken on a powerful social function. Along with its
phenomenal growth, the Internet has brought with it numerous tools for engaging in social
interaction. E-mail, for example, was one of the first tools available on the Internet that served to
connect individuals (Zakin, 1996). More recently, the development of synchronous
communication tools has continued this trend, gaining considerable popularity for their ability to
facilitate routine social interaction. One such tool is that of instant messaging (IM). IM is a near-
synchronous written medium similar to a private chat room and provides geographically
distributed relational partners with the opportunity to engage in ‘real time’ interaction. Of
particular interest to the present study is how it functions to facilitate relational maintenance
much in the same manner as more traditional forms of communication (e.g., face-to-face
interaction) or even less traditional ones (e.g., e-mail).
Convention