Response to non‐response: How people react when their smartphone messages and calls are ignored. Issue 1 (22nd October 2020) - Agarwal, Naresh Kumar
Abstract: Smartphone‐mediated communication has become the norm for a lot of people over the last two decades. It's common to see people spend a large part of their days glued to their smartphones, maintaining constant connectivity through sending and receiving messages and calls. However, people, almost daily, experience their closed ones or professional contacts not responding to certain messages and phone calls from them. The objective of this project is to investigate the non‐response behavior and the anxiety that people experience when their messages or calls are not responded to, and the resulting adverse effect on communication. Through interviews of 24 smartphone users, we found that the majority of the participants, especially those very active on social media, were highly affected by non‐response. By better understanding individual reactions to non‐response, the study recommends solutions and a framework for effective communication using smartphones. The study demonstrates how relationships play out in smartphone‐based communication, and what we could do to make them better. The study will inform the youth, parents, teachers, employers, and the society as a whole, as we embrace changes brought about by smartphone‐mediated communication.