3: Media Richness Theory

Instant messaging has had a profound effect on how people connect. I use instant messaging to talk to many different people with whom I have different levels of familiarity. I find that instant messaging is often easier than talking to people face to face and in some cases it enables communication when face to face communication is not possible. For example, one of my best friends from back home is abroad in China for a year. Because of instant messaging, we are able to have synchronous communication which makes it so that except for the time difference, I can't tell any difference between communicating with him in China and if they were in Chicago. I could communicate in other ways, I could use a voice-over-IP service like Skype, but that is complicated and too formal. I want to be able to just chat with my friend while I am doing other things. I usually would not have a reason to call or type up an email, but if I can see he is online and not doing anything, there is no reason that I can't have a conversation about absolutely nothing. This follows the Media Richness Theory. There is no need for any more information from my friend than what I am getting. I do not need to see video of him, I do not need to really talk to him. If anything, I prefer talking to him online rather than on the phone. However, I do need my communication to be synchronous. I do not want to have a conversation over email because I don’t consider that a real conversation. Instant messaging is the richest medium necessary.

I actually really have trouble communicating with people that do not follow the Media Richness Theory. I hate when people text message me things that they should be asking me over the phone. I can understand when someone does not really want to have a conversation and might just want a quick yes or no, or if they can’t talk, but it is a completely different story when someone is asking me a question on how to do a homework problem over text messaging. Often in these cases if I want to talk to them, I will change the medium. I change the medium to one that I think has the richness that I find necessary to properly communicate. I find it interesting that a synchronous conversation can switch mediums without missing a beat and that different people can use the Media Richness Theory and end up trying to use different mediums. Although no media is best for all social interactions, people can usually settle on a particular media for a specific conversation.