Personal message

Personal message, private message or personal chat, often abbreviated as PM or PC, is a private form of communication between different members on a given platform. It is only seen and accessible by the users participating in the message. It has grown popular because of the increasing demand for privacy and collaboration in this society where the public sharing domain dominates.

There are two main types of personal message: a feature on social platforms and private messaging services. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all examples in which social media included personal messaging features to provide space for private interactions amongst their users. WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, and Snapchat are examples of pure private messaging tools. Users create and sign up for accounts to connect privately with selected friends. 3rd type of messaging platform is peer-to-peer messaging platform where the users themselves own and create the infrastructure used to transmit and store the messages ; while features vary depending on application, users themselves are in control of data concerning themselves. One example is Classified-ads.

Besides serving as a tool to connect privately with friends and family, personal message has also gained momentum in the workspace. Professionals are using it to reach coworkers who are not located in the same room to increase efficiency during meetings and work time. Although useful, personal message facilitates the fuzzy boundary between work and private lives. For many, it makes work hours longer and private times shorter.

As early as 100 BC the first form of personal messaging was put into action, when human messengers were used to send messages across lands. As time went by, new methods of personal messaging developed.

The development of computers sparked the information revolution, which changed the way humans communicate with each other. Peter Drucker published an article centering on the theme that the computer is to the Information Revolution, as the railroad was to the Industrial Revolution. The railroad unified the United States from the east to the west coast, but the computer unified the entire globe (from a communication standpoint).

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Wikipedia