LITERACIES OF IM/SMS: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Gene Lyman
For Leisy/Yaden LRC 796/LRC 699
12/18/2016
Short message service and Instant Messaging services are synchronous one-to-one and one-to-many computer-mediated communication (CMC) platforms that became widely popular between the mid-1990s and the early years of the 21st century. Based on their technological affordances and constraints, in conjunction with their largest initial user base (primarily teenagers and younger adults) IM/SMS converged linguistically in developing a unique set of syntactical, orthographic and lexical features.
Fluency in IM/SMS varieties of many languages has become a situated literacy within the larger structure of the parent languages. This has provoked concern that regular users of IM/SMS language varieties may become passively unable to learn, or actively inclined to degrade, older conventions for the written forms of the parent languages. In tension with the aforementioned concern is a competing belief that improvements in digital computing and network technologies are crucial to the future of educational practice. Moreover, the underlying technology platforms for IM/SMS continue to change, becoming increasingly multimodal (text is now only one option alongside photography, video and sound) and intertwined with larger and less predictable social and commercial interests.
The New London Group’s 1996 statement on a pedagogy of multiliteracies calls for “…[reopening] two fundamental questions: the "what" of literacy pedagogy, or what it is that students need to learn; and the "how" of literacy pedagogy, or the range of appropriate learning relationships.” (New London Group, 1996, p. 73). My goal, in this review is to start this process of reopening with respect to IM/SMS. I suggest there is a need for further research to assess of IM/SMS literacy in the context of how it redesigns and re-inscribes its users’ relationship with prior forms of text-based literacy. Further, I assert there is a need to examine whether or not user experiences with IM/SMS literacy can provide guidance as newer and more explicitly multimodal forms of CMC move to the fore.
In the following review, I will draw on approximately the ten most recent years of scholarly research to explore the following questions:
· What are the characteristics of IM/SMS communication that make it a unique evolution of written language?
· Why would IM/SMS communication and its associated linguistic features be viewed as “controversial”?
· What relationship is there, if any, between IM/SMS literacy and students’ capacity to master traditional print literacy?
· Are educators and educational technologists incorporating IM/SMS in academic contexts in ways that utilize IM/SMS’ unique language characteristics?
In the discussion section of this review, I will also speculate briefly on the potential future of IM/SMS communication as a cultural phenomenon and pedagogical affordance. Advances in mobile computing technology have opened new modalities for personal CMC while also potentially limiting available channels. These changes may affect how educators will analyze and utilize IM/SMS going forward.
I conducted keyword searches of relevant terms (such as SMS, instant messaging, pedagogy, literacy, etc.) across four online article databases: the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), Education Abstracts Full Text, Communication & Mass Media Complete and JSTOR. I conducted additional searches on the academic networking site Research Gate. I restricted the scope of results to peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, with the exception of a few popular press articles that conveyed the reaction of “mainstream” journalists, public-facing academics and other social power brokers to IM/SMS at various points in time. I further combined these results with information taken from books relevant to the topic of IM/SMS communications. This yielded about 360 potentially relevant published studies; I then applied further restrictions by article category (slightly different for each database, but in general categories relevant to linguistic features of IM/SMS, print literacy, and application of IM/SMS as an educational technology platform).
I culled articles relating to Web-based social media applications and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, as these comprise a closely related but newer and separate mode of CMC. In some cases, I selected studies within specific topic areas in preference to studies with similar outcomes, based on characteristics such as larger sample sizes, clarity of presentation, or more detailed discussion of study results. I also kept book readings where relevant, leaving an overall number of about 45 sources for the current review.
Computer mediated communication (CMC), broadly defined, is the exchange of information between humans using digital computers and computer networks as the medium of communication. A longstanding and basic division among CMC tools is whether they provide asynchronous or synchronous communication between parties. In addition, they “can also be characterized in terms of structures of interaction: one-to-one interaction, one-to-many interaction, and many-to-many interaction (also called group interaction)” (Lee, 2002). Depending on the context of CMC use, we can also add a distinction between private communication (to a known individual or group) and public communication (to known and potentially unknown individuals or groups).
Current instant messaging (IM) applications (such as Google Hangouts and Facebook Chat) are all functionally descendants of group communication and one-to-one messaging programs developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s (Latzko-Toth, 2010). Popular use of commercial IM services such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Yahoo Messenger expanded during the 1990’s; 59 million users were logging in to the four largest services by 2001 (LaGesse, 2001).
Short Message Service (SMS) began as an extension of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) (Crystal, 2008). The first SMS text message was sent on December 3, 1992 (Kelly, 2012). As the GSM cellphone standard started in Europe, text messaging over SMS took root more quickly in the European Union than in the United States (Agar, 2014). By 2001, 250 billion SMS messages were being sent worldwide (Crystal, 2008). Although SMS messages are transmitted and received over a cellular radio (cell phone) network rather than the Internet, GSM and its descendants (2G, 3G and 4G) comprise a digital computer network (Agar, 2014).
Viewed through the lens of their status as CMC, SMS and IM exhibit the following characteristics:
Table 1. CMC characteristics
of Instant Messaging and Short Message Service texts
|
CMC Type |
Instant Messaging Application |
Short Message Service |
|
Synchronous/Asynchronous |
Synchronous1 |
Synchronous1 |
|
Interaction type |
One-to-one; many-to-many;
multiple one-to-one, using windowed chat applications |
Primarily one-to-one2 |
|
Public/Private |
Private or public3 |
Private3 |
1. With the caveat that any communication can be missed, ignored or postponed by
the recipient.
2. SMS is now used by various public and private
entities to send alerts, security codes and similar information. This is
technically one-to-many communication, but is not
representative of interpersonal usage.
3. Unlike IM which offers the opportunity for
interaction with unknown persons through chat groups or “channels,” SMS
communication requires both parties to have previously communicated their
telephone numbers to each other.
SMS and IM also, at least initially, offered quite different physical and technological affordances and constraints:
Table 2. Technological and
physical affordances and constraints of IM and SMS
|
CMC Type |
Instant Messaging Application |
Short Message Service |
|
User Input |
Full terminal/typewriter
keyboard |
Twelve-key telephone touchpad
(multi-press alphabet or predictive text) |
|
Application Output |
Terminal monitor, later
windowed computer display |
LCD phone display |
|
Technical Constraints |
Incompatible IM clients and
networks (greatly diminished since Web-based IM services became available) |
140 byte data limit –70 to 160 characters depending on
writing system used |
(Agar, 2014; Crystal, 2001
and 2008; Faulkner & Culwin, 2005; Latzko-Toth, 2010)
Despite their
disparate origins, CMC characteristics and affordances/constraints, the
language varieties used for IM/SMS communications exhibit many convergences in
their lexical and orthographic features; though not total by any means, these convergences
seem to have occurred quite rapidly. Lewis & Fabos
(2000), Crystal (2001), Lee (2002) and Varnhagen et al. (2010) all identify distinctive
language features used in IM conversations. Crystal provides a comprehensive summary
(2008) of the features of SMS text—or ‘txt’—which is here supplemented by
Thurlow & Brown’s categories of SMS text modifications (Thurlow & Brown, 2003). The terminology describing
these features is inconsistent among researchers, however; multiple terms are
therefore provided in Table 3., below.
Table 3. Linguistic co-features
of IM/SMS communication
|
IM text feature |
SMS text feature |
Example |
|
|
Shortening—letter/number homophone (Lee, 2002) |
Logograms (Crystal, 2008)
or Letter/number homophones (Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
@oms 2day 4ward |
(atoms) (today) (forward) |
|
Emotion punctuation (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Pictograms (Crystal, 2008) |
:-) |
(smiling) (rose) |
|
Shortening—letter homophone
(Lee, 2002) or Alphabet/letter (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Rebuses (Crystal, 2008) |
cul8r
@home |
(see you later) (at home) |
|
Abbreviation (Crystal,
2001) |
Initialisms (Crystal, 2008;
Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
jk |
(just kidding) (yes) |
|
Shortening—reduction of
word (Lee, 2002) or Contraction (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Contractions (Crystal,
2008; Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
rad gov |
(radical) (government) |
|
Abbreviation (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Clippings (Crystal, 2008;
Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
plsd mssng |
(pleased) (missing) |
|
G-clippings (Thurlow &
Brown, 2003) |
flyin |
(flying) |
|
|
Deviant spellings (Crystal,
2001) |
Nonstandard Spellings
(Crystal, 2008; Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
haX0r teh |
(hacker) (the) |
|
Abbreviation (Crystal,
2001) |
Shortenings (Crystal, 2008;
Thurlow & Brown, 2003) |
bro sis |
(brother) (sister) |
|
Insider word (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Novelties (Crystal, 2008) |
pwnd noob |
(owned/”poned”) Newbie |
|
Misspelling (Varnhagen et al.,
2010) |
Misspellings (Thurlow &
Brown, 2003) |
craazay |
(crazy) |
|
Acronym (Lee, 2003; Varnhagen et al., 2010) |
Acronyms (Thurlow &
Brown, 2003) |
AFAIK YMMV |
(as far as I know) (your mileage may vary) |
|
|
Accent Stylizations (Thurlow
& Brown, 2003) |
afta |
(after) (me) |
Ling & Baron (2007), while noting the language commonalities above, identified the following syntactic differences between IM communications and SMS texting. SMS texts often contained more words, (possibly because of the per-message pricing model common to SMS). IM communications tended to break into more separate messages and used fewer abbreviations, possibly reflecting affordances provided by a full keyboard and a fee-for-service rather than per-message price model (Ling & Baron, 2007).
The syntactic differences between SMS and IM communication seem relatively minor, however, when the most striking commonality is taken into account: IM/SMS effectively hybridizes speech and written communication. Although this is not an entirely new phenomenon—and is further extended by more recent innovations in multimedia CMC—the adaptation of written text to carry deictic, phatic and illocutionary content directly, deserves further discussion here.
Crystal describes text-based CMC as “something fundamentally different from both writing and speech, as traditionally understood. It is, in short, a fourth medium” (Crystal, 2001, 283). In 2001, Crystal was also considering longer-forms of CMC, such as email and webpages. He speculated that IM/SMS, because of its synchronous nature and relatively high compression might exaggerate the characteristics of this hybridization. Crystal’s subsequent research (2008), which addressed SMS texting exclusively, found that many of the distinctive features of IM/SMS language, such as initialisms, logograms, and forms of word shortening had precursors in older printed language forms. Part of what made IM/SMS language a distinct new form of written communication was the combination of these features in a new technological and social space (Crystal, 2008).
Lanchantin, Simoës-Perlant, & Largy (2012) conducted a mixed methods study of 40 French adolescents. Their observations of the syntactical and lexical text elements of the instant messages exchanged, such as the frequency of phatic expressions, duplication of pronouns, repetitions and undefined deictics, led them to conclude that IM/SMS communication is closer to oral than written language in its conventions. These results should be viewed cautiously due to the small sample size and the fact that some of the characteristics Lanchantin, Simoës-Perlant, & Largy associate with “the oral code”—such as using word order to convey emphasis and omission of negation adverbs—may be language-specific to IM/SMS communication in French. Nonetheless, a similarly sized preliminary study (n=40) by Varnhagen, et al., (2010) found American teenagers also used a variety of paralinguistic short cuts. These included emoticons (smileys), capital letters and excessive use of punctuation to convey the writer’s emotional state, in a manner similar to facial expressions and tone of voice in face-to-face conversation.
Darics (2013) examined the manipulation of orthography through letter repetition to inscribe non-verbal communication features into CMC texts, such as enthusiasm (Yyyaaayyyy!) or informality (duuuude). By introducing various elements of ‘vocal spelling’ into IM exchanges, the various parties communicating are able to convey paralinguistic cues around whether or not communication is task-oriented, parties’ emotional states and power/status relationships between conversational partners (Darics, 2013).
Arguably, one of the most distinctive features of IM/SMS communication is the use of glyphs (‘emoticons’, ‘emoji’ or ‘smileys’) to convey the emotional intent of the communicator’s message. Originally compiled from combinations of existing character marks, more recent IM software has substituted actual images in place of letters and/or punctuation. Two studies, one by Garrison, et al., and another by Baron and Ling (2011) specifically analyze usage of variant punctuation and emoticons as features of IM/SMS:
Baron and Ling used information from in person focus groups and analyzed a small corpus of collected text messages to determine that a consistent and rule-based pattern of punctuation substitution (such as use of the ellipsis ‘…’ to indicate a conversational pause) was common in IM communication between American college students. Additionally, emoticons, or ‘smileys’ were used in lieu of terminal punctuation to moderate the emotional impact of IM statements (Baron & Ling, 2011).
Garrison et al., (2011) conducted a corpus-based analysis, working with a collection of 54 IM transcripts comprising approximately 32,000 words. Their analysis is notable for its consideration of placement of emoticons as rhetorical moves within IM/SMS communication. For example, placement of an emoticon in the middle of an IM/SMS statement, in addition to conveying an emotional state, may also convey grammatical information by separating a declarative statement from supporting background content (I’m happy :-) the package arrived!). (Garrison et al., 2011, p. 122). They conclude that paralinguistic features such as emoticons are not secondary to the print-linguistic features of IM/SMS communication. Additionally, they suggest that analysis of IM/SMS writing practices “might help students better understand, as well, the semiotic and rhetorical value of traditional forms of punctuation” (Garrison et al., 2011).
Haas, et al. (2011) performed a broader examination of the same corpus and developed a fifteen-item taxonomy of paralinguistic features in IM messages. Describing IM writing as an “everyday literac[y] of new media language” (p. 382), Haas and her co-investigators discovered that 67% of IM features actually elaborated on standard written English. These paralinguistic features largely served to convey illocutionary information: how one might “hear” the text, the intentions of the writer and social characteristics of the writer her/himself. Nonetheless, IM language is “written language that has been pulled some way in the direction of speech, rather than spoken language that has been written down” (p. 394). In effect, IM language is an expansion of prior forms of written language “…innovative, creative ways some writers are using written language to communicate and to reappropriate paralinguistic features of spoken communication into their written language.” This stands in sharp contrast to “…the dominant popular discourse [that] has characterized IM and texting as ruining the English language” (Haas, et al., 2011, p. 397).
I will try to address the “popular discourse” that Haas, et al., reference in the next section of this review. For now, however, I would like to pick up on Crystal’s description of IM/SMS communication as “in a small way, language in evolution”(Crystal, 2008, p. 175). Exactly what language evolution means is potentially debatable (see Haspelmath, 2016). In the case of IM/SMS it seems most logical to view “evolution” as the survival of specific traits that are most useful in a text-based CMC environment. IM/SMS permits many of the social features of real-time, oral conversation but is created as a mode of written communication. Linguistic and paralinguistic features that may have played a lesser role in print-based media suddenly became more useful and therefore proliferated. Additionally, as I will explore below, the demographics of IM/SMS “early adopters”—which initially trended both younger and more tech-savvy than many consumers of printed media—made the linguistic features of IM/SMS language seem socially marginal and structurally provocative.
Social concerns have accompanied the introduction of every new personal communication technology. In the 1890’s local scandals sometimes erupted around ‘telegraph romances’ (Standage, 1998). In the early 20th century, questions arose around what kinds of social behaviors were permissible in the context of the new-fangled telephone (Fischer, 1992).
IM and SMS likewise appear to have become controversial in proportion to their rapid growth in popularity. A distinctive element in this controversy is a focus on the linguistic features of IM/SMS communication. Crystal (2008) describes “a remarkable number of doom-laden prophecies” about changes leading to the decline of literacy and language as a whole (p. 151). Thurlow (2006) placed the roots of this “moral panic” in a set of popular themes—generally rooted in misconceptions and boosted by unsupported sources—concerning IM/SMS language and its discursive functions. Thurlow notes “the exaggeration of the distinctness of new media language also functions powerfully to “other” young people…this, in turn, serves to discipline youth and to elevate adulthood” (Thurlow, 2006, p. 689).
This conclusion resonates with Carrington's (2004 and 2005) argument that popular depictions of the decline of “academic” literacy in relation to SMS ‘txt’ reflected an ideological debate over the social value and status of IM/SMS as an emerging parallel literacy, rather than a measured assessment of the real impact of IM/SMS communication on traditional print literacy: “[A]dults…drawing on the sanctioned authority afforded them, decide which texts, literacies and therefore the kind of identities…to which young people will be entitled” (Carrington, 2004, p. 225). IM/SMS, in addition to offering a set of linguistic and paralinguistic affordances that differ from conventional printed media, permits relatively inexpensive, instantaneous and—from a hierarchical perspective—unregulated communication by a less socially powerful group (young people) unhindered by physical barriers or distance (Carrington, 2004; Crystal 2008).
In the context of established genres of print literacy, or even broadcast media literacy, it is uncommon for a more socially powerful group (in the case of IM/SMS, adults) to need to adapt to the language, literacy and general communication practices of a less powerful one (youth). It is not surprising, therefore, that this kind of social reversal encounters resistance in some contexts and attempts at cooptation in others. In academic contexts, it is possible to find examples of both, as I will examine in the following sections.
Observing that the controversy over IM/SMS literacy is, at least in part, ideological does not mean there is no interaction, or even interference between IM/SMS literacy and traditional or “academic” literacy. Verheijen (2013) reviewed the corpus of empirical research conducted on this topic between 2007 and 2012. She found that out of 18 studies, seven showed a positive correlation between IM/SMS literacy and student success with measures of traditional literacy such as reading, spelling, phonological and morphological awareness and writing. Only two revealed a negative correlation, but the remaining nine studies indicated either no correlation between IM/SMS literacy and measures of traditional literacy, or yielded conflicting results (Verheijen, 2013). Verheijen reaches the tentative conclusion that “texting and IMing have a detrimental effect on literacy skills is actually ungrounded, at least as far as texting and IMing in English is concerned” (Verheijen, 2013, p. 596). She notes, however, that the studies she examined have considerable differences in research design, populations and measures. The differing technical affordances of SMS and IM may also have affected outcomes in some cases, and the overwhelming number of correlational studies “[make] it unwarranted to draw conclusions about the causality of the factors” (p. 597). Verheijen recommended that future studies incorporate observational elements (to the extent possible) in order to capture a better sense of actually frequency of IM/SMS use by study populations and that future empirical studies should incorporate experimental interventions and be longitudinal, rather than concurrent (p. 598).
Wood, Kemp and Waldron (2014) conducted a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of the relationship between IM/SMS and academic literacy for primary-, secondary- and college-level students using a sample battery of pre- and post tests covering general cognitive abilities, grammar, spelling and orthography taken twelve months apart (December 2011 and December 2012). Although they are cautious in their findings, due to having relatively small sample sizes from each population, their results suggest at least for younger users of IM/SMS spelling and grammatical ‘violations’ may be deliberate, rather than related to a lack of understanding formal writing conventions (Wood, Kemp, & Waldron, 2014).
Grace, Kemp, Martin & Parrila’s (2014) mixed-methods study of correlations between SMS language (“textism”) use and “intrusions” of “textisms” in academic exam essays found a mixture of positive and (weak) negative correlations between “textism” use and students’ ability to produce formal academic writing –possibly due to students’ pre-existing level of literacy-related skills. In addition to reviewing students’ texting practices and formal writing, Grace et al. conducted a survey-based study that demonstrated students had a strong sense of the contexts within which “textisms” were appropriate. The students sampled thought “textisms” were suitable for informal communications among peers, but not for communicating with adults or in academic writing. (Grace, Kemp, Martin, & Parrila, 2015).
Drouin and Driver's study (2014) of 183 U.S. undergraduates stands out for its consideration of specific IM/SMS language features in relation to print literacy as well as considering the effect of predictive text algorithms on IM/SMS-print literacy interaction. Dense usage of some common IM/SMS language features such as single letter/number homophones (u want to go 2 the MSU 4 lunch?) and omitted apostrophes appeared to have a slight but statistically significant negative correlation to specific print literacy skills (the former to vocabulary and the latter to reading conventional texts), whereas other IM/SMS language features, such as accent stylization exhibited positive correlations with spelling skills.
The correlations Drouin and Driver found need to be interpreted cautiously, however: IM/SMS using predictive text algorithms moderated the correlations between IM/SM and conventional literacy skills –possibly by influencing the IM/SMS language features selected and used by the sample population. Drouin and Driver also caution against too much cross comparison of their population sample with, for example, the younger British population samples studied by Wood, Kemp and Waldron (Drouin & Driver, 2014).
At this time, it appears that academic research has established no generalizable causal or correlative relationship, either positive or negative, between literacy in IM/SMS language features and the conventions of more formal written language. The difficulty in establishing a relationship may lie in a variety of factors. Thinking in terms of multiple, situated literacies, one might speculate that young people who use IM/SMS to communicate informally with their peers may also have mastered conventional writing practices that they then choose to deploy in more formal contexts. Another possibility is that the linguistic and paralinguistic features that IM/SMS communication pushes to the fore, whether convenience and compression features such a initialisms and omitted letters, or illocutionary features such as emoticons and letter repetitions simply do not ‘fit’ when removed from the IM/SMS context. As they are not seen as necessary in the environment of conventional written literacy, they may simply not be used.
IM/SMS communication has been a topic of interest for literacy researchers because of its linguistic features. It has been a topic of interest for educational technologists as well, for reasons related to its technical affordances (synchronous one-to-one or one-to-many communication) and its popularity among K-12 and college students. Larger educational technology consortiums such as Educause and the New Media Consortium began to publicize SMS and IM communication early in the 21st century (Educause, 2005; Jeong, 2007; New Media Consortium, 2006). Initially, these larger think tanks appeared interested in IM/SMS primarily because of its popularity:
If we can first recognize how students use mobile phones and then design activities that will help them access educational materials, form learning communities, and participate in rich conversations that take advantage of those avenues, we will be able to ride the wave of mobile technology right alongside them (New Media Consortium, 2006, p. 17).
Nonetheless, this initial—and perhaps opportunistic—interest has led to research exploring specific applications of IM/SMS communication in a variety of real-world educational technology contexts.
From an educational technology perspective, IM/SMS can be viewed as a standalone technology or as a component in a larger technology-based model of “mobile learning” or “m-learning”. “M-learning” is something of a catchall term for pedagogical methods incorporating mobile phones, tablet computers, or other small, portable networked devices up to the size of small laptop computer. In theoretical articles about “m-learning” messaging platforms such as IM/SMS are often viewed as a means for instructors to send short elements of course materials or various reminders to students outside the classroom (Barreh & Abas, 2015). Maguth (2013) similarly discusses IM/SMS as a platform for sending messages to students. Maguth also presents some opportunities for student interaction in the form of GOOGLE SMS—which allows students to text queries to the popular Internet search service—and polleverywhere.com, which allows students to send preselected responses to in-class polls (Maguth, 2013).
Gasaymeh and Aldalalah (2013), conducted a quasi-experimental study of using SMS to support learning activities with a nonrandom sample of 52 Jordanian college students taking an introductory programming course. The study used a pretest/posttest model in conjunction with an interview questionaire; students in the test group (n=29) received an average of 3 SMS messages from their instructor each week over a twelve-week period. Message content included hints for assignments, programming concepts and triggering questions. Analysing pre- and posttest scores of both groups using the t-test for independent samples and analysis of covariance (t(.05,28) = -2.64 and F(1,49)=12.55, p < .05) revealed a statistically significant improvement in posttest scores for the test group relative to the control group. It is important to note, however, that although students in the test group felt positive about receiving hints for the homework or reminders to study, SMS communication was entirely one-way, from instructor to student and, based on the examples provided did not incorporate any specialized IM/SMS language features (Gasaymeh & Aldalalah 2013).
The potential of IM/SMS messaging as a means of supporting public health interventions is also an ongoing topic of research. Pedersen et al., (2014) studied the effects of using SMS message exchanges in support of dietary education for a large sample (n. 1488) of Danish adolescents. There was a statistically significant improvement between students receiving and sending diet-related SMS messages about their daily consumption of fruits and vegetables versus the control group, but found no significant effect in combining SMS messages with classroom instruction. Overall effect size was also small: the research team found issues with engagement among study participants in the intervention groups that may have suppressed effect size overall (Pedersen et al., 2014).
Another area of institutional interest for applying IM/SMS is to enhance communication and build relationships between students and instructors. Balayeva and Quan-Haase (2009) conducted survey research on the responses of students communicating with university faculty in IM-based “virtual office hours”. They found the students in their research sample thought that IM was a suitable medium for asking faculty questions outside of class. Nonetheless, only a minority of the students surveyed (19%) took advantage of “virtual office hours”; generally for “quick and unequivocal questions” (Balayeva & Quan-Haase, 2009, p. 125). In addition, 10% of students surveyed felt uncomfortable using IM to communicate with faculty. This may have been because the IM programs used made it difficult to separate personal communications from more “official” exchanges with faculty members.
Similar results emerged when Lauricella and Kay (2013) studied IM/SMS communication in the context of student-instructor and student-peer messaging. Also a survey-based study, Lauricella and Kay’s research compared and contrasted students’ attitudes towards and use of SMS and IM-based messaging in both student-instructor and student-peer contexts. The students in the survey sample (n=73) preferred communicating with instructors using SMS rather than IM. SMS was perceived as being both more convenient (students and instructors had more frequent access to their mobile phones) and less personal than IM. Students also used both SMS and IM messaging to communicate with their peers about academic topics much more frequently than with instructors (Lauricella & Kay, 2013).
One area in which institutional IM/SMS implementation may be succeeding is library reference services. Meulemans, et al.’s case study (2010) of IM-based reference services at California State University San Marcos showed a sixfold increase in usage of IM reference over the course of a 14-month pilot program. Feedback from a user-satisfaction survey showed that 87% of library patrons preferred the IM-based reference service to in-person communication at the reference desk. Over a third of IM reference questions were research-related and students would use the IM reference service even when they were physically in the library building (Meulemans, et al., 2010).
Commercial IM services, which rely on users having individual IM accounts, may be supplanted, however, by Web-embedded messaging “widgets”. In addition to offering greater anonymity to patrons seeking services, widgets permit conversations to be distributed among multiple reference librarians without requiring the librarians to have individual user accounts. Stormont (2010) documented the evolution of Pennsylvania State University Libraries virtual reference services and found that within a year of its introduction, 60% of virtual reference questions were being sent to librarians through the library’s Web-embedded chat widget. Stormont’s article is as much descriptive as analytical, but he hypothesizes that the embedded widget is a simplification of and improvement on IM references service with which Pennsylvania State library users were already familiar (Stormont, 2010).
The possibility of using IM/SMS technology to enable more interactive—and therefore more—engaging classroom environments, particularly for lecture-based courses is also a topic of exploration. One early case study by Markett, et al. (2006) examined SMS messaging as a method for students to interact with a course lecturer during class meetings with an option for post-meeting follow-up on specific questions. The study showed that SMS was a useful way to incorporate a familiar communications medium and encourage student interaction. The method actually used, however, for in-class interaction differed markedly from the usual CMC affordances for SMS communication. Intermediary software was used to transform the students’ SMS messaging from one-to-one to a many-to-one model (all messages were captured in a database and then displayed to the instructor). Additionally, the physical and technological limitations of SMS messaging (telephone keypad and 160 character message limit) made it difficult for students to respond to one portion of a lecture without potentially being distracted from a subsequent discussion point (Markett et al., 2006).
Sweeney (2010) describes a team assignment in which the instructor texted instructions to groups of students via SMS and received their responses through the same medium. Sweeny does not mention, however, if students were permitted to use any IM/SMS language variations in their responses. In fact, part of Sweeny’s argument for using IM/SMS hinges on students using the IM/SMS medium to compose their work using conventional language. While this demonstrates at least a partial awareness that students can, and will fall back to more formal language when working on school assignments, Sweeny also points out “is important to establish ground rules about your expectations and the type of language that is acceptable in online environments” (Sweeny, 2010, p. 128). In effect, the medium can be used, but only on grounds compatible with the instructor’s authority.
Turner (2009) tries to move past the idea that IM/SMS language is deficient, by incorporating Wheeler and Swords’s work on code-switching into a classroom exercise intended to help students distinguish between IM/SMS language (as informal communication) and standard English (as formal communication) and to ‘flip the switch’ between the two linguistic modes in a conscious fashion. Unfortunately, Turner’s article merely describes a hypothetical exercise, rather than an experimental study; it isn’t possible to speculate to what extent students might arrive in class already aware of the distinction Turner wishes to cultivate. Turner does, however, acknowledge that in order “[t]o…privilege the language of digital natives, teachers might [also] ask for reverse translation” (Turner, 2009, p. 63). Nonetheless, Turner also notes that “[p]arents and teachers may still question the suitability of text speak in academic setting” (ibid.).
It is not entirely surprising the available educational technology literature tends to focus on the CMC affordances of IM/SMS as opposed to its linguistic features. The reasons for this are, potentially, twofold: first, computer mediated communication is not controversial within educational technology as a discipline. The assumptions in fact often run in the opposite direction: why wouldn’t CMC improve instruction? Second, the educational technology lens can lead researchers and practitioners to the view that, if only the “digital immigrants” can uncover the correct tools and methods to reach the “digital natives” the latter group can be smoothly integrated into the social and knowledge structures created by the former (Prensky, 2001). The underlying assumption is one of methodological rather than institutional or cultural change.
Short message service and Instant Messaging services are synchronous one-to-one and one-to-many computer-mediated communication (CMC) platforms that became widely popular between the mid-1990s and the early years of the 21st century –initially among teenagers and young adults. Based on their technological affordances and constraints, IM/SMS taken together provide a medium that enables a hybridization of oral and written discourse. Users of IM/SMS both exploit and expand linguistic and paralinguistic features that convey the illocutionary force of face-to-face conversation in textual form. The outcome of this is a convergence of language forms across the two platforms into a specific language variety I have referred to metonymically as IM/SMS.
IM/SMS is distinct from the established written forms of its parent language(s) and requires modifications of established literate practices to produce and to read. Because of its associations on the one hand with technological change—therefore “the future”—and on the other with unmonitored (or difficult to monitor) communication among youth and younger adults, some journalists, conservative academics and other social power brokers have represented it as a threat to ‘literacy’. The fact that ‘literacy’ in this case simply means fluency in the established written language forms used in print media—and, one might add somewhat cynically, that there is no simultaneous call to boycott cell phone manufacturers or to divest from America Online—reinforces the idea that the ‘threat’ to social order posed by IM/SMS is largely symbolic ;-)[1]
Nonetheless, educators genuinely concerned with the teaching and learning of literacy need to take into account that there may be some interaction, or even interference between IM/SMS literacy as a situated literacy of practice among youth and the established literate practices that are taught in schools. Even if the “threat” of IM/SMS language practices is overblown, nonetheless established textual practices have current social utility and power. If it is true, as the New London Group asserts, that “[p]edagogy is a teaching and learning relationship that creates the potential for building learning conditions leading to full and equitable social participation” (New London Group, p. 60), educators must afford students the opportunities needed to learn them.
Affording students opportunities to master the conventions of mainstream print literacy, however, does not mean ignoring the opportunities and affordances provided by IM/SMS literacy. I have argued in this review (and the current literature supports) a perspective that educational technology researchers have focused on the technical affordances of IM/SMS to enhance instruction without considering IMS/SMS language practices as worthwhile topics of teaching themselves. There may be a variety of reasons that this is so. Two positions strike me as being of concern, however: The first is that changes in pedagogy afforded by technology constitute “progress” and therefore do not require critical evaluation.
The second is that changes brought about by technology are instrumental and methodological –master the methods, and the content taught need not change radically. Drawing once again on the New London Group: uncritical adoption of IM/SMS technology in educational practices simply because it is a form of CMC falls short in “[creating] learners or communities who can critique what they are learning in terms of historical, cultural, political, ideological, or value-centered relations” (New London Group, p. 84). Assuming that IM/SMS is available simply as a method or tool ignores “students' own experiences and discourses, which are increasingly defined by cultural and subcultural diversity and the different language backgrounds and practices that come with this diversity” (ibid, p. 88). In the context of IM/SMS, technological affordances, language features, questions of relative social power, and pedagogical uses intersect and interlock with one another.
Unpacking the full implications of IM/SMS literacy is likely to become more rather than less complicated. Starting with Apple’s introduction of the iPhone in 2007 (Agar, 2013) the technology platforms for Instant Messaging and Short Message Service have converged with one another and the World Wide Web. Smartphone users can now send SMS messages and use multiple IM services on a single device. In addition to sending text users can transmit photographs, audio and video clips as well as entire document files that may be separate from the conversation literally at hand. Perhaps of greater significance, end users can use smartphones to send information to public websites, in effect transforming IM/SMS from text-based interpersonal communication to a personal multimedia publishing system.
Social media websites permit a variety of communication modalities. Some focus primarily on video or photographs (YouTube and Instagram, respectively). Others assume that users will want to post longer text content alongside or in combination with other media (Facebook, for example, lets users publish text, photographs, audio and video) and some permit personal ‘remixing’ of content from other users (Pinterest). One of the more interesting sites, from the standpoint of IM/SMS and a more expansive exploration of multimodal literacy is Twitter, which allows users to post photographs, video and audio while retaining the original SMS 140 character text limit. Current scholarly research on the literacies of social media websites is outside the scope of this review. Cross-comparison of the text-based literacy practices of IM/SMS with the more extensively multimodal literacies enacted on social media websites, however, may yield further insight into the direction of CMC as a literate practice generally and the potential impact new digital platforms may have on text literacy as a whole.
I can conclude with few simple observations in this direction: at least some of the original “moral panic” described by Carrington (2004, 2005), Crystal (2001, 2008) and Thurlow (2006) around IM/SMS has reappeared in the context of social media websites (Hansen, 2013; British Broadcasting Corporation, 2015). The multimedia affordances and broader publishing scope of social media sites introduce genuine legal questions around personal privacy, protection of children, social harassment and obscenity, which need to be untangled from the “sky is falling” narratives that accompany perceived shifts in social authority. Additionally, social media sites generate revenue by aggregating information about their users and selling it to advertisers. While this lowers one barrier to entry for users—the fee-for-service model that applied in slightly different forms to IM/SMS—it introduces elements of corporate surveillance and channel control that will require even greater critical awareness as part of literate practice in these media.
Meanwhile, IM/SMS communication continues sub rosa, available in its original form, in the context of standalone multimodal chat applications, or as a semi-private subcomponent of social media websites such as Facebook. A final topic that may prove fruitful for literacy researchers and teachers is integration of social media practices into one-to-one communication. In addition to capturing a specific set of linguistic and paralinguistic features from print media to convey illocutionary components, IM/SMS may become a fully multimodal language variety, encompassing text, images and other media cues to expand the range of meaningful communication between individuals. This would truly be language in evolution.
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[1] Winking ‘emoticon’ here is deliberate, for those
who may fear I am undermining the integrity of academic prose.