Multicommunicating

Multicommunicating is the practice of engaging in more than one conversation at a time. It is defined as, "engaging in two or more overlapping, synchronous conversations." The term multicommunicating was coined by Turner, Reinsch and Tinsley, who posit that simultaneous conversations can be conducted using an ever increasing array of media, including face-to-face, phone and email tools for communication. Multicommunicating evolves with the rapid development of ICT. It has become more and more prevalent in recent years and starts to receives attention from academic fields. Up to now, the majority of academic research focuses on its professional implications and outlines a number of key factors shaping the act of multicommunicating. For instance, the flexibility of communication tempo, the compartmentalization of conversations, and the topics and intensity of interactions are all contributing factors toward a person’s choice of engaging in multicommunicating as well as his or her ultimate success with the practice.

The reason why multicommunicating is possible from a physiological and cognitive perspective is because humans, or presence allocators, are typically able to think faster than they are able to talk or type. Nonetheless, most neuroscience studies imply that we are not truly cognitively capable of multitasking; we are just able to switch between tasks. This means that those of us who are most adept at apparent multitasking, or multicommunicating, are essentially very quick at juggling our attention(s) between messages.

Notably, many people engage in multiple conversations as a direct response to the requests of others. Employees frequently believe that multicommunicating increases their productivity and work efficiency, however in-depth interviews about the practice of multicommunicating have often revealed some mixed results. Research has also shown that the most commonly used combinations for multicommunicating are the telephone and email, followed by the telephone and text-based messaging (text message, instant message, etc.).

As a concept, multicommunicating primarily builds off Hall’s work on polychronicity, Goffman’s theory of the presentation of self, and Daft and Lengel’s notion of media richness; multicommunicating is also similar in nature to the notion of multitasking. However, where multicommunicating departs from all of these previous concepts is that it refers specifically to managing multiple conversations, people and media – not just tasks – at the same time. Stephen, Cho and Ballard elucidate this distinction in a 2011 paper which compares dovetailing (sequential communication) with mutlicommunication (simultaneous interactions). In addition, multicommunicating often occurs unbeknown to one's communication partners.

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