Adoption of Instant Messaging Technologies by University Students

The main objective of this paper is to better understand the nature and patterns of students’ socialization patterns in relation to the adoption of Instant Messaging (IM) systems. A model based on the Extended Planned Behavior Theory (EPBT) was applied to a sample of 80 students of software engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Based on the EPBT model, a questionnaire was administered to these students. A number of key concepts were identified in relation to the students’ adoption of IM. It was also found that students use IM to support a number of task-related purposes such as collaborating with their classmates about group work and assignments, as well as for scheduling and coordinating meetings and significant results were obtained