The adoption of social media has been extensively discussed. However, to explain the adoption of traditional social media, considering the benefits and risks accumulated from the…
Abstract
Purpose
The adoption of social media has been extensively discussed. However, to explain the adoption of traditional social media, considering the benefits and risks accumulated from the experiences of social media use, the extent literature is limited. Thus, this paper investigated the act of traditional social media users’ switching behavior from a dynamic perspective and the level of information privacy concerns and social media privacy to measure the risks and benefit accumulated from this dynamic process.
Design/methodology/approach
This study of Facebook and Twitter users, who are regarded as representative of traditional social media, are selected as research targets surveyed and were required to answer a specially designed questionnaire in order to determine their general feeling on social media platforms they currently use. As a part of this process, quota sampling was used to collect different samples based on gender and age. In this paper, t-test, one-way ANOVA and multiple comparisons were used for the statistical analysis, conducted through SPSS.
Findings
Information privacy concerns and social media dependency affect the adoption of social media. Secondly, social media dependency is a more salient determinant for social media adoption. Therefore, social media firms should pay more attention to enhancing user dependency of social media by increasing user involvement of social media.
Originality/value
This study intends to conduct a research design that provides an overall and holistic understanding of user usage experience. To do this, it investigates the intensity of switching behavior through the level of dependency and the level of information privacy concern that users inevitably exhibit through the use of social media over long time.
Details
Keywords
Inwon Kang, Matthew M. Shin and Chanuk Park
The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret addiction to social network services (SNSs), not from the traditional clinical perspective as a disorder, but from a management…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret addiction to social network services (SNSs), not from the traditional clinical perspective as a disorder, but from a management perspective as consumer behaviour to examine its possibility as a manageable resource.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted on heavy users of SNSs. Based on the data the authors performed an exploratory factor analysis to define SNS addiction and to construct its dimensions.
Findings
The authors termed SNS addiction as an “addictive consumption trait” (ACT) of SNS and its underlying dimensions are salience, euphoria, immersion, compulsion, and association.
Research limitations/implications
The authors used SNS user behaviour as the sample for their empirical analysis. However there is a variety of other internet services available and different internet services may show different consumer behaviour. Therefore, for future research, the authors suggest conducting a comparative study on the influence of addiction on different types of internet services.
Practical implications
With the newly constructed dimensions of ACT of SNS, firms could find out the causal relationships between the attributes of their SNSs on each dimension of ACT of SNS. Once firms understand the influences of each one of the attributes on ACT of SNS, they can re‐strategise their resource allocation for maximising consumers' ACT of SNS.
Originality/value
SNS addiction has been viewed as a clinical disorder for treatment. The paper considers SNS addiction from the marketing perspective, which is a novel approach in the study of addiction. Through this study the authors hope to trigger academic discussions about ACT of SNS as consumer behaviour and as a manageable resource.