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“I opened a group for myself, to keep my data…”: Personal Information Management and Usage Patterns on WhatsApp

Full Paper: Research ID: 54749
  1. aaa
    Alona Forkosh Baruch
    Levinsky College of Education, Tel Aviv University
  2. aaa
    Lilach Alon
    Tel Aviv University

Abstract: WhatsApp has become a popular and available social media application which enables instant messaging that includes media, text, photos, videos, and voice, and requires management of personal information (PIM). Studies on PIM practices on social networks, especially on WhatsApp, being an available and easily utilized platform in particular, are meager. Hence, our study focuses on examination of information management on the WhatsApp application, and on its implications in the field of education. Participants included 257 respondents, a large portion comprised of educators and students, to an online questionnaire focusing on characteristics of WhatsApp usage and PIM practices. According to findings, WhatsApp was considered a very important PIM platform by about two thirds of respondents. However, frequencies of activities used by participants to adapt the WhatsApp for PIM was relatively low. Using factor analysis of 16 practices listed in our questionnaire, we identified 4 factors: retrieving information items, managing ToDo lists, prioritizing information items, and organizing WhatsApp messages and groups; of these, the most used were the mundane uses. We also identified different usage patterns among participants, e.g., number of WhatsApp group. We conclude that in order to use WhatsApp to its fullest PIM capacity, being available widely on mobile devices, educational actions need to be performed.

Presider: Sarah Prestridge, Griffith University

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