Social factors in the design and use of computer-mediated communication technology

Computer mediated communication technologies (CMC) encompass information technology, messaging systems (such as chat and instant messaging) and desktop conferencing technologies designed to facilitate group work. Prior research suggests CMC adoption fails when it interferes with subtle and complex social dynamics of groups. Yet, empirical studies of CMC use that explicitly associate social behavior with design features are largely absent from the literature. Also absent are conceptual tools for detecting and describing such behavior. My research addresses these absences by closely examining how CMC design supports social interaction among geographically distributed work groups. Qualitative findings indicate how specific design characteristics of chat affords increased social accountability and stimulates or suppress use among different user groups. Other findings indicate instant messaging affords both information exchange (meeting scheduling) as well social exchange (impression management) among users. These findings extend media theory to include communicative processes in which people satisfy both social and informational needs. Quantitative findings demonstrate that task performance is impaired when users are observed via application sharing and video compared to when they are not observed. These findings indicate that the sense of social presence of others, mediated by conferencing technology, can negatively impact performance on a cognitive-reasoning task. Implications of these findings are to demonstrate, paradoxically, that where other researchers have found that the overall quality of a collaborative product may improve with video and electronic conferencing, individual performance may suffer. This dissertation also builds a theoretical model of the relationship between interface design and the social context of use. Drawing on related research in perceptual psychology, a theory of social affordances is articulated and used to analyze the empirical findings of CMC use reported here. In the manner that the concept of physical affordances has been used by others to define a user interface, the concept of social affordances is used here to define a social interface. This research provides the conceptual groundwork for future studies examining specific tradeoffs between design and use of CMC technologies.