WhatsApp Data Reveals People Deceive Themselves
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How quickly we reply, how active we really are in chats-many people misjudge their own behavior. Researchers at Bielefeld University have, for the first time, used anonymized WhatsApp metadata to make such misperceptions visible. Their study shows that personalized, data-based feedback can help people better understand their own communication habits; an vital building block for digital well-being and successful relationships.
Digital communication shapes everyday life, yet many people know surprisingly little about how they themselves communicate via chat. “some believe they reply too slowly, others think they always write more than everyone else. Our data show that these assumptions are frequently enough inaccurate,” says study author Olya Hakobyan from Bielefeld University.
Together with Professor Dr. Hanna Drimalla, she has now published the research in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
To gain reliable insights into actual communication behavior, the researchers developed their own data donation platform. It anonymizes WhatsApp metadata, i.e. not chat content, but information such as response times or message lengths, and presents the data in individualized visualizations. For the first time, participants were able to see how their actual behavior compared with their self-assessment.
Data rather of gut feeling
Previous research on messaging behavior has mostly relied on surveys. Such self-reports are subjective and often unreliable. The Bielefeld stu
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