Disadvantages:
- As it is immediate, you have no time to reflect on the message you are sending, unlike an email you can review the draft before sending. This is because you may be sending the wrong message to someone which can have private information in that you may have not wanted them to know about but they eventually see it.
- IM services often come with ads (for the free version) and you Have to pay a certain amount of money for a ‘premium service’ if you want to avoid this. Sometimes you are better off paying for the premium services however they can be expensive/ not your money's worth. you would be better off buying premium services because some apps can be overloaded with ads which not everyone is happy to welcome.
- You need to have a stable Internet connection to be able to use this service whereas if you send a text message you don't need a connection to the Internet.
- You can get a virus on your device from a multimedia file that was sent to you. This can be critical and damaging to your device whether it is a computer or your mobile phone and you are constantly vulnerable to these things unless if you don't send and also receive multimedia messages.
- When people talk on to each other on instant messaging service they often shorten words by taking out the vowels or by any other means so this can affect you in real time as you may right like that thinking it’s formal because you are so used to it. [11]
COMMUNICATION:INSTANT MESSAGING |
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