摘要:We present a conversation analysis of openings sequences of online text-based chatcounseling. Particular about this chat counseling is that the clients made available their helpquestion through pre-screening. The data consisted of 40 chat sessions with pre-screeningand 34 sessions without pre-screening from the Dutch alcohol and drugs chat service. In thechat sessions with pre-screening, the participants displayed accountability with regard to thenorms relevant to pre-given information, which took up space and time and frequentlyinvolved interactional misalignment. In chat sessions without pre-screening of the question,the openings followed a more fluent interactional course. We discuss how affordances ofdigital communication media may work as constraints when the participants orient tointeractional norms known from other, offline environments