Continuing Use of SNS Games for the Growth of Social Network Services

By using Social Network Services (SNSs) as platforms, game developers have gathered a huge user base, and the entertainment these games provide has further enlarged the SNS user base. However, there are signs that this symbiotic growth is slowing down. We developed a model and tested 14 hypotheses. Our main findings are: Although SNSs are “social,” “social norms” do not have much impact on the intention to use the games continually. Although users generally are not addicted to SNS games, the creation of addiction is an effective way to achieve continuance

Harnessing Technology: analysis of emerging trends affecting the use of technology in education (September 2008)

Research to support the delivery and development of Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008–1

Personality Traits and Motivations for Usage of Online Social Network Sites Among College Freshmen

Millions of people worldwide log onto social network sites (SNS) every day. Some users have positive experiences while others have negative experiences. The functionality of any given SNS is the same for each user, but the choice of how and when to use certain features leads each user to have different experiences. This study utilized a uses and gratifications framework to help understand what gratification expectations affect the usage of SNS among college freshmen in their first semester. Additionally, the research explored a possible link between individual personality traits of freshmen and gratification expectations as well as a link between levels of homesickness and gratification expectations. College students (n = 499) enrolled in a First-Year study course completed an online survey that contained a uses and gratifications of SNS scale, the McCroskey (1997) 12-item Introversion scale; the Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, and Schreindorfer (2001) 10-item Need to Belong scale, and the Utrecht Homesickness Scale (Stroebe, van Vliet & Hewston, 2002). Based on an exploratory factor analysis, gratification expectations were reduced into two factors. The first factor consisted of items related to expectations for entertainment gratifications. The second factor consisted of items related to expectations for social gratifications. Based on the results of this study, it is reasonable to conclude that incoming freshmen utilize SNS to satisfy a need for social gratifications as well as entertainment gratifications. The data also indicated that, to some extent, the characteristics of extraverts and introverts are represented in the way freshmen use SNS. Additionally, the findings indicated freshmen are more likely to use SNS to keep up with their friends than with their family. Although there was not a strong positive correlation between homesickness and gratification expectations, there was a clear indication of usage of SNS to relieve symptoms of homesickness

Empirical Study of Effect of Deregulation, Competition, and Contents on Mobile Phone Diffusion: Case of the Japanese 3G Market

The Japanese mobile market has recently shown a remarkable growth in the last decade, with more than 106.2 million 3G (3rd Generation, or W-CDMA) subscribers and 4.4 million 2G (2nd Generation, or PDC) as of December 2009. This paper attempts to analyze factors promoting Japanese mobile phone, focusing on 3G technologies. Factors promoting it can be summarized as follows: (1) deregulations by government, such as MNP (Mobile Number Portability) and collocation; (2) competition among carriers, such as introduction of new charge plans; (3) technological development, such as connection speed; and (4) contents and applications. This paper utilizes the panel data of three main carriers of the mobile phone market, namely, NTTdocomo, au (KDDI), and Softbank. As for a model for estimation, we apply that of Madden and Coble-Neal [2004] which studied the relationship between fixed and mobile phone with the panel data by the dynamic random effects estimation. Dynamic models are based not only on the assumption such that carriers do not instantaneously adjust to satisfy their long-term demand but also on network externalities. Besides, the paper applies a dynamic panel data model in order to take care of the endogeneity problem. This paper deals with this problem rigorously by applying Arellano-Bond estimator (Arellano and Bond [1991] and Arellano and Bover [1995]) which estimates exogeneous or predetermined variables, in addition to instrumental variables, using the two-step generalized method of moments (GMM). Based on this framework, this paper identifies service innovations such as entertainment, flat rate charges are found significant for the 3G mobile phone diffusion. --dynamic panel data analysis,competition policy,network externalities,endogeneity,m-commerce,e-entertainment,MNP

The General Data Protection Regulation:A Partial Success for Children on Social Network Sites?

Almost 20 years ago, the first social networking site (“SNS”) was launched in the U.S. Whilst developers originally intended for SNSs to be used by adults—which they are—they have also become an integral communication platform in the lives of many children in EU Member States. Sharing personal information on SNSs is now a routine activity for many children and, whilst they are computer literate in a way that their parents are often not, a number of concerns have emerged. One of these concerns is that children are vulnerable since they lack the capacity to consent to the terms of SNS membership agreements regarding the processing of their personal data. A further concern is that children’s naïve confidence sometimes leads them to take risks—by sharing information about themselves—that adults would not take. This is particularly concerning as children may be ignorant about the fact that their profile and behavioural data is sold to data brokers who use that information to produce targeted adverts—and that these adverts may display age inappropriate content or even may not by recognised by the children as adverts. Directive 95/46/EC regulates the processing of the personal data of EU citizens, including personal data posted on SNSs. Problematically, it was drafted in a pre-SNS era and neither makes reference to children nor considers them vulnerable data subjects whose personal data should be subject to more stringent processing rules. The absence of specific legal protection for children’s data on SNSs sparked concerns that children were ignorantly disclosing personal data and being exposed to profiling and advertising without adequate privacy and data protection safeguards in place. In response to these concerns, provisions aimed at safeguarding children’s privacy and data protection rights have been included in Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (hereafter “GDPR”), which will come into force on 25 May 2018. This chapter provides a critical evaluation of the forthcoming measures to address a knowledge gap that exists because of the novelty of these provisions and the fact that scholarship in this area is currently underdeveloped. It begins by providing an overview of SNSs and the problems posed by underage children’s access to them. In this regard, it will illustrate that the biological and psychosocial developmental changes that children experience as they progress through their teenage years and develop their capacity for freedom of expression makes them vulnerable to impulsive personal information disclosures and privacy invasions. After this, an exploration of the current legal protections for children’s privacy on SNSs from the perspective of privacy as information control will highlight deficiencies in Directive 95/46/EC. This leads to an analysis of the measures in the GDPR to determine whether they will, when introduced, realise the twin goals of legitimising the processing of children’s personal data and, at the same time, protecting their fundamental privacy and data protection rights. The compatibility of measures in the GDPR with provisions in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (“the UNCRC”) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000) (“the EU Charter”) is considered as these provide a normative framework for evaluating children’s legal rights. To comply with both legal frameworks, data protection measures in the GDPR governing children’s activities on SNSs should recognise their evolving capacity for freedom of expression and privacy. This would allow them to express themselves with appropriate safeguards in place, ensuring that their best interests are protected and that they are not subject to economic exploitation through activities such as profiling and advertising without consent. Specifically, the analysis presents a critical evaluation of the introduction of an age threshold, below which children are deemed to lack capacity to consent to the processing of their personal data; the conceptual coherence of relying on parental consent for children under the threshold age; the practical implications of Member States being permitted to set the threshold age within a range of ages; and the practical challenges posed by relying on verified parental consent. The chapter concludes that measures in the GDPR are compatible with provisions in the UNCRC and the EU Charter but that a number of practical challenges remain unsolved. For instance, allowing Member States to set the threshold age means that the goal of simplifying and harmonising the regulatory environment for SNSs operating on a transnational basis will not be fully realised. Equally, reliance on parental consent and the consent of children over the threshold age is conceptually coherent, but it is dependent on the introduction of low-cost age-verification mechanisms being integrated into SNSs. It is also dependent on child data subjects (or their parents) being digitally literate enough to give unambiguous, specific consent to the processing of their personal data. Relatedly, whilst the GDPR includes measures to promote and increase the digital literacy of both parents and children, it remains to be seen how effective these will be in practice. For these reasons, the GDPR is an improvement on Directive 95/46/EC, but only a partial success

Build Customer Loyalty Using Microblog – A Relationship Perspective

In recent years, micro-blog, a kind of Social Network service (SNS), has been adopted as a popular way for people to interact with their significant others. Nowadays, people can exchange short messages via various digital devices through micro-blogging. Witnessing this trend, practitioners strive hard to seek opportunities in utilizing micro-blogging for better customer reach. Numerous studies have also investigated this phenomenon. While previous studies primarily placed their focus on people’s motivation to use SNS, usage pattern and potential applications in various discipline, to our best knowledge, Research on micro-blog is still in its infancy and the core concept of SNS, i.e. social relationship, is rarely addressed. This study thus proposed a framework to investigate the effect that micro-blog are to exert on consumer’s relationship with firms. Results suggested that system quality, interaction quality, and relationship benefits are influential to relationship quality which contributes to loyalty. Implications of research findings are also to be discussed in this study

Building an innovation discontinuance model : the case of twitter

This dissertation seeks to extend Everett Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovations theory by examining social media users’ post-adoption behavior. Despite the rapid growth of social networking sites (SNSs), the rate of user discontinuance is staggering. Keeping users active and engaged has always been a crucial issue for SNSs. Prior diffusion research has largely focused on innovation adoption, whereas innovation discontinuance is overlooked. However, innovation discontinuance is a vital facet of the diffusion process. In the real world, only a few innovations become institutionalized while most end up being fads that most users discontinue quickly. While early studies approached discontinuance as a one-time, complete abandonment of an innovation, this study extends the concept by examining two types of discontinuance: intermittent and permanent. Intermittent discontinuers are users who leave an innovation for a break but resume the use at a later time; permanent discontinuers are those who have no intentions to return. This study takes a mixed-methods approach—combining a user survey with computational analyses of “big data” drawn from Twitter—to explore the differences between intermittent and permanent discontinuers in three dimensions: (1) their distinctive characteristics (demographic, behavioral, and psychographic), (2) reasons for discontinuance, and (3) decision processes. The concept of intermittent discontinuance leads to the development of a new post-adoption decision-making model, which accounts for discontinuers’ planned and unplanned readoption behavior. This cyclical, multi-stage model also provides a systematic framework to compare the behavior and cognitive reasoning between intermittent and permanent discontinuers at each phase of the post-adoption cycle. While prior studies employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine discontinuance, few came up with clear and reliable ways to measure the timeframe of discontinuance and users’ reasons for discontinuance. To address the arbitrariness of determining what length of inactivity constitutes intermittent and permanent discontinuance, this study introduces a mathematical approach based on an innovation’s life cycle and its user base. To examine users’ reasons for discontinuance, this study refines and expands Rogers and Shoemaker’s replacement-disenchantment typology—by factors and by discontinuance typologies. While Rogers conceptualized the innovation-diffusion process as an uncertainty reduction process, this study suggests that post-adoption decision-making process is a disturbance-coping mechanism—a temporal settlement of the constant interplay between an innovation’s utilitarian performance and social media exhaustion. Intermittent discontinuance usually occurs due to information overloads. Permanent discontinuance tends to occur due to perceived innovation shortcomings and innovation replacement. This dissertation provides theoretical insights into the temporal instability of an innovation, and why and how an innovation is discarded or discredited. The findings contribute to an adequate comprehension of the entire innovation diffusion process, which also helps SNS providers develop tailor-made retention solutions to re-engage SNS users.Journalis

Social Networking and Social Media in the United States, South Korea, and China

This article summarizes the panel discussion at Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2012 on the social media environment around the world, particularly the United States, South Korea, and China. The panelists discussed the current status of social networking and social media in the aforementioned countries. The first section begins with United States, with social networking pertaining to the population at large, the use of social networks in the business environment, and observed overuse and addictive behavior of wireless mobile devices (WMD) among users. The second section covers South Korea, with the discussion addressing social networking sites (SNS) and its history; the collectivism of Asian culture and how it affects users’ behavior toward SNS; current trends, which include privacy concerns; and the future direction of SNS in Korea. Finally, in China, social media is further explored in the business models of SNS providers, followed by the customer base comparison between the United States and China

The Facebook Project - The Missing Box: The Racial Politics Behind the Facebook Interface

There is no race, ethnicity or nationality category available the default Facebook profile. This, combined with the fact that Facebook is a visually-driven website, suggests that Facebook serves to inadvertently or covertly perpetuate two racist or discriminatory norms: the colorblind mentality and racialized visual classification of others. This paper quickly traverses through a basic theory of identity that dictates that persons incur an on-going dialectic between individual and social identity, both on and offline. It contends that Facebook is an advantageous place to perform and portray one???s social identity and is largely visually-driven, therefore the interface is of paramount importance. Racial, ethnic, or national identity is of significance to many individuals and the lack of a place to express this is a form of discrimination. Such a category should be added to Facebook???s set of basic identity options. Guidelines for a successful implementation are provided.unpublishedis peer reviewe