Effects of Visual Spatial Structure on Textual Conversational Multitasking

Abstract

Textual computer-mediated communication gives rise to conversational multitasking—participation in several concomitant synchronous textual conversations. This study examined how this communication competence is affected by several visual parameters—the distance between conversation windows, number of windows, and window size. Results show that comprehension of concomitant textual conversations is not affected by the distance between conversation windows, and that the advantage of separating conversation threads into distinct windows is greater when overall window size is larger. This study considers the implications and applications of these results to communicative multitasking phenomena, in general, which become prevalent in technologically advanced societies.

Keywords:

• Computer-Mediated Communication
• Interactive Written Discourse
• Internet
• Multitasking

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eli Dresner

Eli Dresner (PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 1998) is an associate professor in the Departments of Communication and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University.

Segev Barak

Segev Barak (MA, Tel Aviv University, 2006) is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University.