America Discovers New Ways to Communicate - Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is a tool that allows people to communicate via text messages in near real time over the Internet, and it is typically available on personal computers and on selected cell phones. How Americans Use Instant Messaging (Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, September 2004) revealed that roughly fifty-four million people (42% of online, adult Americans) used instant messaging. In 2000 IM only had forty-one million users. Some 36% of these IM users reported that they use IM every day, and 63% used it several times a week. Twenty-four percent of those who used IM spent more time on IM than on e-mail. Table 2.4 shows the IM services people used the most in July 2004 and where they liked to use it. AOL was the most popular service, followed by Yahoo and Microsoft.

Generally, most instant messaging programs allow a user to block instant messages from anyone but the people the user wishes to converse with on a regular basis. Those who used instant messaging typically only used it to stay in touch with people they knew well. The September 2004 Pew/Internet report stated that two-thirds of IM users (66%) regularly used the service to communicate with between one and five people, and only roughly one-tenth (9%) contacted more than ten people regularly with IM. In addition, most people preferred to do their instant messaging at home for quick, one-on-one conversations. Seventy-seven percent of the IM community used IM at home, as opposed to 21% at work. Only 22% of IM enthusiasts in 2004 typically sent and received instant messages for more than an hour a day, and 47% percent said their typical IM sessions lasted for less than fifteen minutes.

IM provided people some unique advantages that other communication devices did not. Because of its compact size on the computer screen and its instant nature,

TABLE 2.4

Instant messaging (IM) users and the most popular applications, July 2004
	All locations		Home		Work		University
	Unique visitors (000)	% reach among internet users	Unique visitors (000)	%reach	Unique visitors (000)	%reach	Unique visitors (000)	%reach
SOURCE: "July Data on IM Users and the Most Popular Applications," in How Americans Use Instant Messaging, Pew Internet and American Life Project, September 1, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Instantmessage_Report.pdf (accessed October 25, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.
Unduplicated total	67,921	43.3	53,360	38.8	14,391	28.9	5,754	49.2
AOL Instant Message (proprietary service)	25,090	16.0	21,236	15.5	3,171	6.4	1,888	16.1
Yahoo! Messenger	22,135	14.1	17,564	12.8	4,582	9.2	1,338	11.4
AOL Instant Messenger (AiM service)	21,363	13.6	16,600	12.1	4,234	8.5	2,491	21.3
MSN Messenger applications	17,167	10.9	13,307	9.7	4,132	8.3	1,361	11.6
ICQ	3,956	2.5	2,311	1.7	1,449	2.9	658	5.6
PalTalk	624	0.4	490	0.4	142	0.3	21	0.2
Trillian	404	0.3	239	0.2	133	0.3	52	0.4

people reported that IM was easy to use while multitasking. Thirty percent of adult Americans said that they multitask while using IM. Instant messaging also has a clandestine aspect to it. A person can type a message without anyone knowing what he or she is doing. Nearly a quarter of all IM users said they use IM to converse with someone they were in close proximity to—typically because a class or meeting was in progress.

Table 2.5 shows that IM users in 2004 did not fall along the same demographic lines as Internet users. A higher percentage of African-Americans than whites used instant messaging, and English-speaking Hispanics used IM at the highest rate. Over half of online adult Americans with incomes less than $30,000 reported using IM. Forty-nine percent of those online adults with less than a high school degree took part in instant messaging, which was more than any other educational group. Unlike almost all Internet activities, years of experience on the Internet did not seem to matter when it came to IM. Of course, some of these trends, such as income and Internet experience, were likely due to the age of people who preferred IM. Instant messaging appealed to 62% of Internet users aged eighteen to twenty-seven. In fact, 57% of that age group actually used instant messaging more than e-mail. IM use then dropped off sharply with those aged twenty-eight to thirty-nine and stayed low through retirees.