Revisiting User Engagement: Concepts, Themes, and Opportunities

Given the proliferation of information technology (IT), the growing research interest across diverse disciplines in user engagement with IT is unsurprising. However, defining, designing for, and evaluating user engagement remain complex issues within the information systems community, prompting researchers to call for a systematic understanding of these areas. To bridge this gap, this review presents an analysis of the main themes of 59 empirical studies focusing on the conceptualization, operationalization, antecedents, consequences, and forms of user engagement. Based on the findings of this review, opportunities for future research that address study settings, emerging technologies, the factor structure and forms of user engagement, as well as user engagement frameworks, are presented. As technological advances continue to shape how users engage with IT, the concept of user engagement should be refined and elaborated on according to the research context

Research Framework for Consumer Satisfaction with Internet Shopping

Consumer satisfaction with Internet shopping has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. Studies in this area remain broad and appear relatively fragmented. In view of this, the purpose of this study is to propose a research framework that integrates both end-user computing satisfaction literature and service quality literature. This framework explicitly considers information quality, system quality, and service quality as the key dimensions of consumer satisfaction with Internet shopping. We believe the research framework and propositions serve as salient guidelines for researchers

Problematic Use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Scale Development and Validation

With the rise of the Internet, the new phenomenon of problematic use of online games has emerged, particularly with the popular genre of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Currently, there are a growing number of reported cases of problematic MMOGs use and related negative outcomes. Though the concept of problematic MMOGs use has received considerable attention in the psychology community, there is still a lack of general consensus regarding its dimensionality, operationalization, and development, as well as a paucity of theory-guided empirical research. Thus, this study attempts to bridge research gaps by operationalizing and empirically validating a scale to measure problematic MMOGs use. In this research-in-progress paper, we propose a rigorous approach in developing and validating a problematic MMOGs use scale. The authors believe that this research will contribute to an understanding of the phenomenon and development of problematic MMOGs use in IS research, and add to the repository of rigorous research instruments for researchers to use

UNDERSTANDING USERS’ WILLINGNESS TO REPORT ONLINE HARASSMENT ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: THE ROLE OF EFFICACY

Online harassment is an emerging global societal problem, with its pervasiveness and persistence creating long-lasting adverse psychological consequences to victims. While many social networking sites (SNSs) have started launching online reporting systems to combat online harassment, surprisingly, little empirical research has examined users’ willingness to use the system for reporting online harassment. In this study, we propose a research model explaining the role of efficacy in using the online reporting system of SNSs to report online harassment. We expect that the results of this study make significant contributions to research and practice

The Excessive Use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games: A Theoretical Investigation

Online gaming has become one of the most popular forms of Internet applications and online entertainments today, and has reshaped the ways people communicate and interact. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), being highly challenging, interactive, immersive and persistent, are however often presented as being potentially dangerous of leading gamers to play excessively. Despite a rising concern over this emerging global issue, the theoretical understanding of the excessive use of MMOGs is lacking in the IS literature. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to propose a research model to theoretically explain the development of excessive use of MMOGs. We tested our research model in longitudinal design using an online survey with 602 active MMOGs users. Our results suggested that mood regulation derived from using MMOGs predicts the excessive use. Motivations for playing MMOGs, achievement and immersion, are found important in determining mood regulation. This study provides a theoretical explanation of excessive use of MMOGs, and the results help researchers and practitioners understand the main drivers and mechanisms of the development of excessive use of MMOGs

How Affordances of Immersive Visualization Systems Affect Learning Outcomes through Aesthetic Experience

Virtual reality has received attention as an environment for learning, yet little is known about the effectiveness of bringing the immersive visualization systems into the university classrooms. Building upon prior literature on immersive technology and the theory of affordance, we develop a model investigating how the features afforded by an immersive visualization system escalate users’ engagement, which in turn increases their learning outcomes. We will test the model with undergraduate students who have experienced with an immersive visualization system in the classroom setting. We believe that our work will enrich the existing literature on virtual reality in education and provide insight into the design of immersive representations and the structure of immersive learning paradigm

A Dual-Identity Perspective of Obsessive Online Social Gaming

Obsessive online social gaming has become a worldwide societal challenge that deserves more scholarly investigation. However, this issue has not received much attention in the information systems (IS) research community. Guided by dual-system theory, we theoretically derive a typology of obsessive technology use and contextually adapt it to conceptualize obsessive online social gaming. We also build upon identity theory to develop a dual-identity perspective (i.e., IT identity and social identity) of obsessive online social gaming. We test our research model using a longitudinal survey of 627 online social game users. Our results demonstrate that the typology of obsessive technology use comprises four interrelated types: impulsive use, compulsive use, excessive use, and addictive use. IT identity positively affects the four obsessive online social gaming archetypes and fully mediates the effect of social identity on obsessive online social gaming. The results also show that IT identity is predicted by embeddedness, self-efficacy, and instant gratification, whereas social identity is determined by group similarity, group familiarity, and intragroup communication. Our study contributes to the IS literature by proposing a typology of obsessive technology use, incorporating identity theory to provide a contextualized explanation of obsessive online social gaming and offering implications for addressing the societal challenge

Investigating the continuance intention to play massively multi-player online games

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) have been one of the fastest growing online entertainments and attracted a great sum of venture investment. Yet, little empirical research has been conducted to examine the interrelationship between gamers’ motivations and post-adoption behaviors. This study attempted to explain gamers’ continuance intention to play MMOGs by integrating motivations for playing MMOGs into the information systems (IS) continuance model. We conducted an online survey with 392 World of Warcraft gamers, and validated the model with structural equation modeling approach. With the majority of hypotheses being substantiated, our results revealed that the extended IS continuance model demonstrates satisfactory predictive power to gamers’ continuance intention to play MMOGs. Achievement and immersion motivations were testified to positively associate with enjoyment, and that enjoyment and satisfaction jointly predict the continuance intention to play MMOGs. The study rounded off with theoretical and practical implications

A combined maximum-likelihood analysis of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux measured with IceCube

Evidence for an extraterrestrial flux of high-energy neutrinos has now been found in multiple searches with the IceCube detector. The first solid evidence was provided by a search for neutrino events with deposited energies $\gtrsim30$ TeV and interaction vertices inside the instrumented volume. Recent analyses suggest that the extraterrestrial flux extends to lower energies and is also visible with throughgoing, $\nu_\mu$-induced tracks from the Northern hemisphere. Here, we combine the results from six different IceCube searches for astrophysical neutrinos in a maximum-likelihood analysis. The combined event sample features high-statistics samples of shower-like and track-like events. The data are fit in up to three observables: energy, zenith angle and event topology. Assuming the astrophysical neutrino flux to be isotropic and to consist of equal flavors at Earth, the all-flavor spectrum with neutrino energies between 25 TeV and 2.8 PeV is well described by an unbroken power law with best-fit spectral index $-2.50\pm0.09$ and a flux at 100 TeV of $\left(6.7_{-1.2}^{+1.1}\right)\cdot10^{-18}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}\mathrm{s}^{-1}\mathrm{sr}^{-1}\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$. Under the same assumptions, an unbroken power law with index $-2$ is disfavored with a significance of 3.8 $\sigma$ ($p=0.0066\%$) with respect to the best fit. This significance is reduced to 2.1 $\sigma$ ($p=1.7\%$) if instead we compare the best fit to a spectrum with index $-2$ that has an exponential cut-off at high energies. Allowing the electron neutrino flux to deviate from the other two flavors, we find a $\nu_e$ fraction of $0.18\pm0.11$ at Earth. The sole production of electron neutrinos, which would be characteristic of neutron-decay dominated sources, is rejected with a significance of 3.6 $\sigma$ ($p=0.014\%$).Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; updated one referenc

Characterization of the Atmospheric Muon Flux in IceCube

Muons produced in atmospheric cosmic ray showers account for the by far dominant part of the event yield in large-volume underground particle detectors. The IceCube detector, with an instrumented volume of about a cubic kilometer, has the potential to conduct unique investigations on atmospheric muons by exploiting the large collection area and the possibility to track particles over a long distance. Through detailed reconstruction of energy deposition along the tracks, the characteristics of muon bundles can be quantified, and individual particles of exceptionally high energy identified. The data can then be used to constrain the cosmic ray primary flux and the contribution to atmospheric lepton fluxes from prompt decays of short-lived hadrons. In this paper, techniques for the extraction of physical measurements from atmospheric muon events are described and first results are presented. The multiplicity spectrum of TeV muons in cosmic ray air showers for primaries in the energy range from the knee to the ankle is derived and found to be consistent with recent results from surface detectors. The single muon energy spectrum is determined up to PeV energies and shows a clear indication for the emergence of a distinct spectral component from prompt decays of short-lived hadrons. The magnitude of the prompt flux, which should include a substantial contribution from light vector meson di-muon decays, is consistent with current theoretical predictions.Comment: 36 pages, 39 figure