Prevalence of the Use of Mobile Instant Messaging Applications: The Need to Assess Their Usage in Human Factors Investigations

摘要

Smartphones have become an essential part of our everyday life. Use of mobile instant messagingapplications (e.g., WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, Kik, Viber, GroupMe, Telegram, Send, Line, andSnapchat) rather than messaging services from cellular service providers have become very popular amongusers, far outpacing the use of more traditional text messaging. Initial research revealed that the globalusage of these modes of communication far outnumber standard text messaging. These instant messagingapps allow users to perform the same function as traditional communication tools (text, voice call, audiomessage, video call from phone carrier’s number). Additionally, they offer other capabilities such ascreating group chats, and sharing photos/videos – in many cases without the need of using data plancoverage from phone carriers. Although instant messaging applications have become very popular, theiruse for communication may not be considered as often as traditional voice and text message phone recordswhen assessing accident causation due to potential driver distraction from phone usage. The purpose of thispaper is to highlight the prevalence of instant messaging applications, the need to consider the usage ofinstant messaging applications when assessing potential driver and pedestrian distractions due tosmartphone usage, and some initial tools for gathering data on usage of some of the applications.