IM Receptivity and Presentation-type Preferences among Users of a Mobile App with Automated Receptivity-status Adjustment

Researchers have long attempted to estimate instant-messaging (IM) users’ attentiveness, responsiveness, and interruptibility. Yet, IM users’ self-presentation of their receptivity, and their perceptions of automated adjustment/revelation of their receptivity status (e.g., Facebook Messenger’s green dot that deems a user to be “active”), remain under-explored. We therefore told our 43 participants that our IM app, IMStatus, was capable of automatically estimating and adjusting their receptivity status to responsive, attentive, or interruptible based on their smartphone activity. These statuses were also presented to their IM contacts in three different styles. Over a two-week period, the participants rarely chose the status interruptible, and when they did, it was usually to indicate low availability. Textual presentation was usually chosen to express statuses precisely, especially at high and low extremes of receptivity; while graphical and numeric presentations were preferred when self-perceived receptivity levels were more ambiguous. Conflicts between recipients’ and senders’ perspectives are also discussed.