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Was my message read?: Privacy and Signaling on Facebook Messenger

Published: 02 May 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Major online messaging services such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are starting to provide users with real-time information about when people read their messages, while useful, the feature has the potential to negatively impact privacy as well as cause concern over access to self. We report on two surveys using Mechanical Turk which looked at senders' (N=402} use of and reactions to the `message seen' feature, and recipients' (N=316) privacy and signaling behaviors in the face of such visibility. Our findings indicate that senders experience a range of emotions when their message is not read, or is read but not answered immediately. Recipients also engage in various signaling behaviors in the face of visibility by both replying or not replying immediately.

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  • (2024)The Hidden Toll of Instant Messaging Use in Remote Work: Interaction Dynamics Between Subordinates and SupervisorsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642913(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Waiting for the Boss's Blue Checkmark to Appear: Supervisor's Attentiveness, Negative Emotions, and Work Engagement During Instant Messaging at WorkCyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking10.1089/cyber.2023.035427:5(347-352)Online publication date: 1-May-2024
  • (2023)Analysis of Non-Experts' Security- and Privacy-Related Questions on a Q&A SiteIEICE Transactions on Information and Systems10.1587/transinf.2022ICP0006E106.D:9(1380-1396)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2023
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2017
    7138 pages
    ISBN:9781450346559
    DOI:10.1145/3025453
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 02 May 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. anonymous access
    2. privacy
    3. social networks

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    CHI '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 600 of 2,400 submissions, 25%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)The Hidden Toll of Instant Messaging Use in Remote Work: Interaction Dynamics Between Subordinates and SupervisorsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642913(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2024)Waiting for the Boss's Blue Checkmark to Appear: Supervisor's Attentiveness, Negative Emotions, and Work Engagement During Instant Messaging at WorkCyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking10.1089/cyber.2023.035427:5(347-352)Online publication date: 1-May-2024
    • (2023)Analysis of Non-Experts' Security- and Privacy-Related Questions on a Q&A SiteIEICE Transactions on Information and Systems10.1587/transinf.2022ICP0006E106.D:9(1380-1396)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2023
    • (2023)Stubbi: an Interactive Device for Enhancing Remote Text and Voice Communication in Small Intimate Groups through Simple Physical MovementsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3596016(1773-1788)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
    • (2023)Using Facebook Messenger versus Groups for News EngagementDigital Journalism10.1080/21670811.2023.2208630(1-19)Online publication date: 10-May-2023
    • (2023)What makes IM users (un)responsive: An empirical investigation for understanding IM responsivenessInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102983172(102983)Online publication date: Apr-2023
    • (2022)Social Media as a Promotional Tool in the Fashion Industry: A Case Study on Meta Platforms Inc.International Journal of Case Studies in Business, IT, and Education10.47992/IJCSBE.2581.6942.0168(351-365)Online publication date: 12-May-2022
    • (2022)Safe spaces? Grounding political talk in WhatsApp groupsNew Media & Society10.1177/1461444822113608026:9(5423-5444)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2022
    • (2022)The Reappropriation of Instant MessagingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35467226:MHCI(1-23)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2022
    • (2022)Laila is in a Meeting: Design and Evaluation of a Contextual Auto-Response Messaging AgentProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533493(1457-1471)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
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