Communication Concurrency and the New Media

Abstract

An experiment investigated the ideational performance of groups using verbal or computer-mediated communication while face-to-face or distributed from one another. Groups using computer mediation outperformed groups using verbal communication. The proximity manipulation had no significant effects on performance. It is proposed that the difference between the new media (e.g., computer-mediated) and more traditional media (e.g., verbal) relates to the medium's concurrency—defined as the number of distinct communication episodes a channel can effectively support. Computer mediation can support an unlimited number of parallel and distinct communication episodes; traditional media support serial communication and therefore have a fundamentally different concurrency.