Working with Tweets vs. Working with Chats: an experiment on Collaborative Problem Solving

This papers aims to explore how “working with tweets” differs from “working with chats”. With eight experimental sessions involving 120 Italian students, we investigate how the well known 140-characters limit and other subtle differences between Twitter and a typical instant messenger affect group problem solving performances. In our laboratory experiment, teams of the same size carry out a problem solving task communicating via Twitter or Skype instant messaging. Comparative group performance is measured in terms of successful task completion time. Our results show that the lower number and volume of text messages exchanged via Twitter does not negatively affect group performance: Twitter teams are just as effective as Skype instant messaging teams. These results can be interpreted in accordance with the latest developments in multiple media choice and virtual team effectiveness theories, disclosing interesting windows of opportunities for “working with tweets” in the forthcoming organizational settings.