Used to communicate important information and provide contact
outside of lectures to great effect, email has emerged as the
communication medium of choice. However, Instant Messaging is fast
emerging as a favourable world-wide method of communication with
its interactive nature and appealing user interfaces. However, can it be
as effective within the organisation and more importantly the
university as the now established email? This research paper will
explore how Instant Messaging is advancing from a private consumer
activity to a tool capable of improving communication within the
university and organisations.
Through the development of a controlled experiment the paper
examines the way in which Instant Messaging is being adopted and
how it compares to other forms of communication, including its
associated interrupt recovery time. The paper also looks at the extent
of disruption that Instant Messaging has on users and how users
reacted differently to new messages via different notification settings
