The aim of the work is to identify the functionality required by mobile messengers for convenient online communication between pupils and high school students. To achieve this aim, a survey of 116 questions was developed, which adjusted to the respondent’s answers and reduced its volume in order to avoid the respondents’ fatigue and to decrease the time spent on completing the survey. An online survey of students aged 16 to 24 living in different cities of the Russian Federation was carried out. Then the information obtained was processed, and possible relations between the analysis results were found. Based on the study results, recommendations were formed to improve messengers according to the students- users’ goals and objectives. Now messengers are created mainly for the widespread use. There are already more than a hundred of them, and therefore products need to stand out in order to be competitive. One of the ways to excel is to be narrowly focused, tailored to a specific audience. Since the functionality of the messenger directly affects its popularity, the introduction and refinement of the necessary functions will have a positive effect on the number of users. The analysis shows that developers of instant messengers can improve the efficiency of using messengers by the students and, possibly, reduce the number of installed mobile applications on their devices, and, consequently, decrease the number of competitors for their target audience.