When Indian Women Text Message: Culture, Identity, and Emerging Interpersonal Norms of New Media
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Although text messaging has exploded in popularity worldwide, there is scant research on the social and interpersonal norms guiding its use, particularly when communicators send or read texts while conversing with others (Pew, 2010).In a recent cross-cultural study of text messaging that I conducted, I found that "textiquettes"-emerging interpersonal norms of text messaging-that differed between cultures were quickly developing in India and the United States and appeared to be linked to indigenous cultural values in each society (Shuter & Chattopadhyay, 2010).Although different textiquettes were identified for each country, several findings regarding the specific difference of the text messages of Indian women were particularly puzzling, which serves as the genesis of the study reported in this chapter: Why did women in India engage in text-messaging patterns that were significantly different than their female and male counterparts in both countries?This author found that women in India sent and read texts more often when they were alone and also that they received more negative reactions from conversational partners when they sent texts in their presence.Both patterns were significantly different for Indian men who rarely sent or read texts when alone-preferring instead to text message around family members-and reported seldom receiving negative reactions from others when texting.Similarly, US women and men sent and read text messages predominantly around friends, much less frequently when alone, and rarely, if ever, reported receiving negative reactions for texting when conversing with others.Although it may not be surprising that Indian women preferred texting alone given the
Author: Robert Shuter
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1511185095