Digital Etiquette: Attitudes towards Different Forms of Interpersonal Communication in Messaging Apps

Along with the development and growing popularity of instant messengers and social networks, the internal capabilities of the platforms has also increased: new message formats appeared, like audio messages, video messages, audio and video calls. Internet communication develops together with them. A consequence of the development is a request for the regulation of such communication: users themselves create and reproduce the rules of communication that did not exist to the present day. The rules will facilitate online communication, but people conduct and evaluate communication in different ways. Due to differences in communication and its assessment, as well as due to the lack of a hierarchical structure responsible for the formulation of the rules, the set of rules adopted by all has not been formed yet. However, in the absence of formulated rules, users rely on their own ideas about communication in instant messengers, thus independently regulating such communication. Here we saw the opportunity to formulate and describe the classification of users depending on their assessment of communication formats. Thus, while describing the user’s perceptions of “correct” and “incorrect” communication, we can also describe those rules that have already been formed or are being formed. We conducted a cluster analysis and identified two classifications of users based on their ratings of communication formats. We also identified similarities in the attitude of users to certain formats and situations, and also compared users' assessments of themselves and their interlocutors. The results of this research can be used in commercial chatbots that communicate with customers, as well as in mobile communication with customers online - for example, in support services. The results can also become the basis of internal and external communication guidelines for employees of large companies.