A Review of Theories and Research Based on Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is a communication media which integrates several media technologies. Comparing with other communication technologies, it can achieve more efficient interaction like traditional face-to-face communication. By studying the quantitative and qualitative IM researches in recent ten years, the author saw several limitations in previous studies, including study methods, content, theory, etc. This paper will discuss the limitations in detail. Furthermore, we found that media research and psychology research can be a good reference to research in IM field. The author identified two specific research areas that are very important but ignored by IM researchers in the past: personalized requirements of IM users and construct personalized IM usage behavioral patterns by adopting integrated approach and advanced statistic methods.