Interactivity Features on Social Network Sites: The Moderating Effects of Tie Strength of Interaction Partners and Interaction

• Main Authors: Yi-Ting Wang, 王怡婷
• Other Authors: Ling-Ling Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ps76t6

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 資訊管理學研究所 === 106 === Past studies have shown that interactivity on social network sites assists users in their human-to-human interaction and assumed that interactivity is a multi-dimensional construct, which includes control, synchronicity, and social bandwidth. This study examines how three dimensions of interactivity affect users online interaction process and how such effects are moderated by tie strength of interaction partners (strong-tie vs. weak tie) and interaction purposes (information vs. social). This research conducted two studies to test the proposed hypotheses. Study 1 explored the moderating effects of tie strength. In total, Study 1 recruited 512 respondents to participate in this survey. The empirical results of Study 1 reveal that three dimensions of perceived interactivity significantly enhance user perceived usefulness. Furthermore, two dimensions of perceived interactivity in terms of control and synchronicity significantly increase user continuous intentions to use. In addition, the effects of three dimensions of perceived interactivity on user perceived usefulness and continuous intentions to use are moderated by tie strength of interaction partners. The results show that the effects of perceived control on these two dependent variables are stronger in the strong-tie condition than in the weak-tie condition, whereas such effects of perceived synchronicity are stronger in the weak-tie condition than in the strong-tie condition. Similar to the results of effect of perceived synchronicity, the effect of perceived social bandwidth on perceived usefulness is stronger in the weak-tie condition than in the strong-tie condition. In addition, study 2 examined the moderating effects of interaction purposes. Study 2 totally recruited 488 respondents to participate in this survey. The empirical results of Study 2 indicate that two dimensions of perceived interactivity, including synchronicity and social bandwidth, significantly increase user perceived usefulness. Furthermore, perceived synchronicity significantly improves user continuous intentions to use. On the other hand, the effects of two dimensions of perceived interactivity, control and synchronicity, on user continuous intentions to use are moderated by interaction purpose. The results reveal that the effect of perceived control on user continuous intentions to use is stronger for social users than for information users, whereas such effect of perceived synchronicity is stronger for information users than for social users. The findings of this study offer online practitioners useful recommendations regarding design guidelines of interactivity on social network sites.