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ABSTRACT
This paper is an examination of the social dynamics of messaging apps. These text-based applications such as WhatsApp, QQ, Kik, Facebook Messenger and so on can provide insight into two general areas. The first is the how communication platforms develop critical mass. The second is how interaction with the chat groups that arise within the messaging apps provide us insight into a new form of social interaction. The broader issues of these two areas are examined and further research is outlined.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The idea of critical mass is also used in biology where it is the minimum number of a particular species in a biome needed to sustain the population. If there are too few, for example, mountain lions in an area, they are not able to find sexual partners and the population collapses.
2. Too many different people bringing different agendas into the discussion with the result that instrumentally focused task is not accomplished (Ling & Lai, Citation2016).
3. A real-time conversation that is parallel to but separate from a larger primary group. The concept has been applied to tweeting at conferences where it is not necessarily constrained to a small secondary clique (Ross, Terras, Warwick, & Welsh, Citation2011).