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This chapter analyzes why computers and telecommunications have not created computermediated work environments for collaboration that are as successful as physically shared environments. Our goals are, first, to identify the mechanisms by which proximity makes collaboration easier, concentrating on the way it facilitates interpersonal interaction and awareness; and second, to evaluate how current computer-mediated communication technologies provide or fail to provide the key benefits of proximity. We use a decompositional framework that examines how visibility, copresence, mobility, cotemporality and other affordances of media affect the important collaborative tasks of initiating conversation, establishing common ground, and maintaining awareness of potentially relevant changes in the collaborative environment.

Increasingly, collaborating with other people is as likely to take place over distance or time …