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Communication problems

Article in Knowledge Technology & Policy · March 2006

DOI: 10.1007/s12130-006-1011-9

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Communication Problems

Leslie Haddon

Haddon, L. (2005) ‘Communications Problems’, in Glotz, P., Bertschi, S. and Locke,

C. (eds) Thumb Culture, Transcript, Bielefeld, pp.89-100

Communications problems as issues to be managed

Understanding people’s use of telecommunications, their take up of new innovations

and the social consequences of this can sometimes be enhanced by considering
people’s communication problems. Such problems can sometimes be experienced at
an individual level, as in the amount of spam some people receive over the Internet.
However, the main emphasis of this chapter is on problems experienced in relation to
other people, especially in relation to other household members. This is because many
of the examples given emerged from the domestication framework of analysis.
Through empirical studies, this focused mainly on the household as a unit of analysis,
although this could now be expanded to consider interactions with other social
network members (Haddon, 2003a, 2004).

The second point to note is that talking about ‘problems’ is a shorthand. Sometimes
people might regard something more as minor irritant, even if they then develop
strategies to deal with it. To return to the above example, deleting a few spam
messages sometimes falls into this category. At the other extreme there can be real
tensions and interactions between people around something explicitly perceived as a
problem, such as telecoms bills - as we shall see below. And sometimes some aspect
of communications just a matter to be dealt with rather than a source of interpersonal
confrontation, such as the wish to avoid surveillance by other household members and
enjoy some privacy when contacting others - as we shall also see below. So when
talking about communications problems, issues to be handled may sometimes be a
more accurate description, conceptualising the user as communications manager.

In the rest of the chapter we first set the scene by looking at some research conducted
in the 1990s on problems relating to the fixed-telephone line. This leads us to the
question of how things are different now, a decade later, when we have far more
communications options, and our communications repertoire has become more
complex (Haddon, 2003b). Three different ways in which communications problems
can be affected by these new options are then outlined. In the conclusion we return to
the opening theme of why this is relevant for understanding communications up
behaviour, take up of new options and their social consequences.

Framework and fixed line research in the early 1990s

British qualitative research from the early 90s looking at the domestication of ICTs in
general considered how people managed their relationship to the fixed telephone line
(Haddon and Silverstone, 1993, 1995, 1996). In other words, rather than focusing just
on the number and the nature of the calls that people make, these studies explored the
types of communications or situations that counted as ‘problems’ for them, and
charted the type of strategies people develop for dealing with these. This sometimes
included efforts to control communications, both outgoing and incoming (Haddon,
1994).

One of the chief reasons for wanting to control outgoing calls was, as might be
expected, the cost of calls. However, there were other problems, such as when some
household members blocked the phone line with their own calls at a time when others
in the home want to make of receive calls of their own. Years later, using the Internet
on the single phone line could raise similar issues. The main problem from incoming
calls was that they could sometimes by disruptive, if they were received during
‘quality’ family time together, dinner time, ‘relaxing time after work, or times when
people were otherwise busy, e.g. getting children for school, preparing meals. Finally,
there were some issues around the desire for privacy when making calls, the desire to
avoid the surveillance of other household members, which was especially important
for teenagers.

These problems, tensions or issues led to various interactions with other household
members, e.g. negotiating rules and understandings with about making calls, perhaps
trying to persuade others to ration calls. They could also lead to discussions with
wider family, friends and colleagues, trying to persuade them to call at some times
rather than others. And they could lead to other strategies. In the case of outgoing
calls this might involve getting children to pay for some of their calls. In the case of
incoming calls it could entail blocking incoming calls at certain times (e.g.
unplugging the phone line, turning down the sound of the ringer), not answering the
ringing phone or getting other people to answer the phone (to say, often pretend, that
they were not available). In the case of privacy, this might mean going to another
room, phoning when other household members were not around or going as far as to
make some calls from outside of the home, including from public phone boxes. Add

A subsequent 5-country European quantitative study 1 aimed to explore the scale of

such problems as well as the degree to which different types of strategy were used
(Haddon, 1998a). To give a flavour of its findings, here is a summary of the data for
the 5-countries combined. In households with multiple members, 24% on the
interviewees received complaints about the cost of the calls they made, but that figure
is perhaps understandable over double that for 14-17 year olds 2 . As regards strategies
to control outgoing calls, 64% used cheaper tariffs, 64% rationed their own use, and
42% tried to limit the calls of other household members. The scale of the strategies
indicates the extent to which telecoms costs are an issue, shaping telecoms usage.
Meanwhile, the attempts specifically to limit others and complaints figure provides
some sense of the interaction going on in households and the potential tensions that
exist.

As regards incoming calls, a substantial minority, 37%, found these to be disruptive at

least some of the time. When we look at the different control strategies used, 22%
blocked phone calls as least some of the time, 22% had not answered the ringing
phone, 29% had got someone else to answer and 32% had persuaded others to redirect
calls to other times. While all of these strategies tended to be used occasionally rather

1
This covered, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK (Haddon, 1998). The published chapter is in
Italian, but an English version of this can be downloaded from
[Link]
2
This rose to as high as 65% for this age group in the UK.
than often, clearly disruptive calls are an issue for many people - which they try to do
something about.

Finally, turning to the question of privacy, 39% used the strategy of phoning from
another room, 30% phoned when nobody was home and 18% had phoned from
outside the home, all the figures being higher for younger age groups. Privacy, too, is
clearly an issue, and a significant number of people develop ways to manage it.

That was the 1990s. The more contemporary question is what happens when we now
have many more communications options? The mobile phone and Internet would be
the obvious major examples. But then we must remember that there are on-going
innovations and developments in relation to these technologies, such as the rise of
texting after the mobile had already started to become a mass market, and changing
tariff structures for both mobile and fixed lines.

One set of questions one can ask about this expanding communications repertoire
concerns the relationships between old and new elements. For example, elsewhere
there has been an attempt to explore the circumstances in which new means of
communication replace or complement older ones. This involves asking about the
continuities between new and old, in that in general we know that much of what
people do with new options builds upon past practices (Jouet, 2000). And one can ask
how we accommodate new options and in general manage a more complex repertoire.
For example, how do we choose between which media to use when we want to
communicate (Haddon, 2003, Haddon and Vincent, 2004)?

However, the point of this chapter is that in addition to these types of question we can
ask about relationships between communications options in a different way: how do
new communications options relate to old communications problems. Three
possibilities will be considered here:
1. The first is where new options are perceived as providing solutions to old
problems.
2. The second is where new options shift the issue to be managed and alter the
negotiations between household members.
3. The third is where new communications options can themselves give rise to
new problems, new things to be managed.

Solving old problems

If we take the example of disruptive calls (for some people at certain times) we saw
how even by the 1990s people had already developed a range of coping strategies. Yet
even by this stage the innovation of the answering machine had provided yet one
more option, one more solution to the problem. Despite being sold as a device to take
calls when people were out of the home, the answering machine was also in practice
widely used for filtering calls. Once again, referring back to the European study, if we
take the combined figures for the 5 countries concerned, 18% used the answering
machine for filtering calls often, 32% doing this occasionally. At a later stage caller
ID provided a related filtering option. This remands use that we need to consider not
only totally new communications channels when considering the repertoire of options,
but also related innovations in terms of new devices or services.
We noted earlier that in the 1990s privacy was sometimes sufficiently important, for
some more than others, that people were developing a range of strategies to manage
this. Even by the time of the mid-1990s European research, when the mobile phone
was still not so widespread, 14% of interviewees were already acknowledging that the
mobile phone was sometimes used precisely because it enabled such privacy
(Haddon, 1998). Indeed subsequent research specifically on youth showed how the
mobile enabled young people to avoid parental monitoring of their calls (Ling and
Helmersen, 2000; Ling 2004).

The same point could be made in relation to other ‘problems’ identified in the 1990s.
For example, the mobile phone and later broadband offering more than one line both
helped overcome the problem of one household member blocking the single
household line with their calls. In some households parents getting children to pay for
their own pre-paid cards for their mobile was one way of avoiding arguments about
the cost of the calls they made (Ling and Helmersen, 2000).

While the above examples are used to illustrate the main point, that new elements in
the repertoire can offer solutions to older problems, this is inevitably also a
simplification. Let us return to the example of the answering machine. They
themselves could constitute a new ‘problem’, or at least an irritation, for callers who
did not like to deal with them 3 . Sometimes the knowledge that filtering was an option
could create the suspicion that the people being called were hiding behind their
machines, and could lead to verbal attempts to persuade them to pick up the phone.
Conversely, other callers learnt to expect answering machines and were at ease with
asynchronous communication. Sometimes they even preferred this, phoning a fixed
line when they anticipate the person will be out – and occasionally they were
surprised when and unprepared when the people called were unexpectedly present. In
other words, while a new option may address an old problem at one level, it can in
turn lead to a whole new set of interactions, issues or strategies.

Shifting problems

In addition to solving old problems, new options also transform the issue to be
managed. For example, in the 1990s, we saw how there was evidence of some
concern, or at least wariness, about the potential or actual size of phone bills, with
examples of parents especially trying to ration children’s use of the phone. A recent
British small-scale study (Haddon and Vincent, 2004) suggested that this underlining
concern with telecoms costs was still present. However, the UK tariff options were far
different by now, with a host of mobile phone and even fixed-line tariff packages
offering flat-rate tariffs, either for certain times or all the time.

Hence, some households in that study that had moved to flat-rate fixed line calls. This
meant that the question of rationing was no longer so relevant, if there were no extra
costs incurred in making additional calls. However, there we still efforts to persuade
children, for example, to use the fixed line in the first place rather than other channels
such as the mobile phone, since that could incur further costs per call. Or if the tariff
was such that flat-rate applied to the fixed line or mobile after a certain time, then
3
In the 1996 European survey, 55% of people were annoyed when the encountered an answering
machine. At that time, 36% said they immediately hung up, 12% listened and then hung up, 44% left a
message and 7 % said that their response depended on the circumstances (Haddon, 1998b).
children (and other adults) were sometimes persuade to steer their calls to those times
when call were regarded as being effectively ‘free’.

Moreover, some of the discussion about how best to keep down telecommunications
costs arose not only when particular calls were made or, more often, when bill arrived
but also when negotiating which operator and tariff arrangement to have in the first
place or deciding whether to change these. To summarise, the problem of
telecommunications costs may still be present, it has not necessarily disappeared, but
the details of its management and the nature of the search for solutions can change.

New problems, new strategies

New communications options can also give rise to new problems, new things to be
managed. A British study of a day-in-the-life of families and their communication
choices started to show some of the new frustrations, or irritations emerging as
telecoms options have grown. For example, it was increasingly common for callers try
one channel, such as the fixed line, and then another one when the first fails or is
occupied. However, this sometimes could happen too quickly, or else precisely
because the person was engaged in one call they did not want to be contacted through
another channel.

‘One thing I don’t like is when my husband tries the house phone and it’s engaged. So
he knows I’m on the phone! And (yet) he’ll ring the mobile. By the time I get to it it’s
stopped. He often does that. It’s really annoying.’ (Haddon and Vincent, 2004).

Appropriate behaviour in these cases had not yet been worked out. Meanwhile the
sheer increase in communications that sometimes followed from having more
channels could be overwhelming

‘Sometimes it infringes on you privacy. I mean you want to be left alone and unless
you switch the thing off…For example, my husband (calls and asks) “Where are you,
what are you doing’. (And I think) ’Oh, leave me alone, don’t drive me mad”.
(Haddon and Vincent, 2004).

Turning specifically to the mobile phone, various studies have looked at how the
mobile can be perceived as being disruptive in different public spaces4 . This has
given rise to observations about how users manage the relationship to co-present
others when they are called – be that people they are with or just others in the vicinity
- as well as with the interlocutor (e.g. Ling, 1997, 2004; Fortunati, 2003). For
example, when do they go off to one side, when do the indicate to others that the call
will not be long. They now have to think about how to manage relations with the
interlocutor in those situations, perhaps indicating the situation and the time that they
can spend on the call. Meanwhile, wow people control and manage their availability
on the mobile is issue people now have to think about, developing policies about who
they give the mobile number out to, and strategies about when they switch the phone

4
In the 1996 survey, 47% of people had a negative reaction to seeing people using mobiles in public
spaces (Haddon, 1998b). One would have thought that this reaction would have diminished as mobiles
became more commonplace, but use, sometimes perceived as misuse, could still attract surprisingly
high negative responses. In research for Eurescom in 2000 (Mante-Meier et al, 2001), nearly two-thirds
agreed with the statement that mobile phones disturb other people (Ling, 2004).
on and how they deal with particular calls –answering immediately or sending it to
voice mail (Licoppe and Heurtin, 2001, 2002).

There have been various issues related to texting on the mobile phone, this time with
problems arising sometimes in relation to peers in social networks. One such issue is
when it is or is not appropriate to manage communication by text at all as opposed to
some other channel or face-to-face (e.g. when ending a relationship with a boy- or
girlfriend). Another problem to be managed was dealing with expectations about how
quickly to return the gift of a text message (Taylor and Harper, 2001) – although this
could also apply to expectations regarding replying to phone messages or emails. And
returning to intrafamily relations and another example from the British study, one
teenager caused great anxiety at home and immediate phone calls back from his
parents, when he sent a text back from a holiday abroad just mentioning that there had
been some problem. This illustrates the more general issue of when it is appropriate to
send a text about what topic, and the consequences of doing so.

Similar questions have also been raised about the appropriateness of some emails, not
so much spam but from and to known social networks. This had led some to comment
on how this medium is still relatively immature, when it can lead to ‘unnecessary’
emails (almost like spam – when one can be overwhelming), emails that find their
way to the wrong people, or emails that create misunderstandings. Once again, people
have started to develop strategies for dealing with all of these potential or actual
problems, although some still remain frustrated by some of these problems 5 .

Conclusions

The very start of this chapter noted that understanding communications problems
could throw some light on telecommunications behaviour. Clearly the examples
provided above illustrate factors shaping the calls people are willing to make, if there
are sometimes interpersonal pressures to limit calls, as well as to receive (if some are
disruptive). The example show why some calls are made at certain times, in certain
places (if we consider the privacy discussion), and, as our options increase, through
one channel or communications mode rather than another (e.g. fixed-line vs. mobile,
voice vs. text, etc).

The opening statement also suggested that this was one factor, albeit only one, of
relevance for understanding adoption of new channels and options (and, we can now
add, amount of their use). This is important for the developers of new ICTs and
services. There is a tradition in the telecoms industry, albeit slightly changing now, of
looking at user needs. Perhaps in part this might be conceptualised as problems users
experience, considering not just usability challenges but some of the more social,
interpersonal issues described in this chapter. Maybe reflecting upon actual and
potential problems of the kind described here might help to create opportunities for
new products and services, or at least avoid aggregating existing tensions or creating
new dilemmas. More generally, while telecoms companies would desire use to
consume ever more of their products, some of these examples have shown the
tensions created by the costs of the current levels of telecoms usage.

5
This section reflects work currently being undertaken for the Oxford Internet Institute by the author,
involving interviews with people about their experience of email.
When we turn to the social consequences of what, for many people, is an expanded
communications repertoire, once again we can start to approach this by asking how
much any problems have changed. Have some been solved, have they been
transformed, or do new communications options lead to new, and possibly more
substantial problems? Often when we ask about social consequences, the question is
one of how much has stayed the same how much has changed, and is that change
relatively superficial or more significant? In these examples, we see this type of
question can be asked of negotiations around the costs of telecoms – it remains an
underlying issue, but clearly some of the discussions and decisions within households
are different from the 1990s situation outlined earlier.

To finish, and standing back from all these particular examples, we can pose the more
general question of why something is felt to be a problem or why something had to be
managed. What expectations exist, where do these come from, is some behaviour
infringing norms that existed before new telecoms options? Such questions have been
posed in relation to some problem with the mobile (e.g. Ling, 1997; Ling et al, 1997),
but they need to be asked more generally of each new medium or innovation.

Second, we need to pose the question of how much of the way we manage our
communications repertoire is settled and how much is still in flux. In other words,
people develop strategies for dealing with problems, but to what extent do tensions or
frustrations still exist, to what extent are people still in a process of trying out
different ways of dealing with problems and in a process of on-going negotiation with
others.

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