Text me back: Response time as a relational predictor across text and email messages
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This paper researches the use of chronemics as a nonverbal cue in two CMC media: text messages and email messages. An online survey was developed using pre-existing scales to measure perceived social attraction and affinity-seeking competence toward a message sender in a 2 x 2 experiment: fast response to text message, delayed response to text message, fast response to email message, and delayed response to email message. Results indicated that response time produced a main effect on perceptions of social attraction, while media channel did not produce a main effect. Also, results indicated an interaction effect between response time and media channel on perceived social attraction. The context in which the media channel is used ultimately results in varying meanings of what constitutes a “fast” response and how social attraction is constructed. Implications of these findings will be discussed in detail.