Exploring continuous participation on entertainment applications of social network sites

Abstract

Researchers have been increasingly interested in examining the effect of social network site based entertainment applications (SNSEA) in retaining while expanding user base for the websites. This paper therefore proposed a research model that investigates how the different types of information embedded on SNSEA affect such continuous participation according to elaboration-likelihood model. The empirical study shows that (1) symbolic physicality reflects the content information of SNSEA, highlighting the cognitive belief (i.e., perceived curiosity) that users can obtain from SNSEA; (2) inherent sociability captures the circumstance or environment cue information of SNSEA, highlighting the affective reaction (i.e., perceived enjoyment); (3) perceived enjoyment, which is significantly related to perceived curiosity of SNSEA, is the significant antecedent of user's continuous participation. In terms of practical implication, our study provides significant indications on how to design and manage SNSEA in an effort to increase user base.