Social Network Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook bring users enjoyment, which positively influences their Actual System Use. Whereas this finding is consistent across different studies and confirms hedonic motivations for SNS use, the question whether utilitarian motives also influence users' usage behavior remains open. Indeed, the findings concerning the influence of Perceived Usefulness differ substantially. Building on both the hedonic and utilitarian foundations of the Technology Acceptance Model, we study whether SNS usage is determined by hedonic motivations, utilitarian motivations, or both. We find that SNSs are dual technologies since both Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Enjoyment are critical influence factors of their Actual System Use. SNS usage is thus determined by both hedonic and utilitarian motivations.
Some studies suggest that Perceived Privacy Risk exerts no influence on the Actual System Use of a Social Network Site. However, the potential indirect relationships between Perceived Privacy Risk and Actual System Use through its central antecedents have so far been overlooked. In this paper, we postulate that Perceived Privacy Risk exerts a negative influence on the Perceived Enjoyment of Social Network Sites, one of the central antecedents of Actual System Use. After surveying 415 students and applying a structural equation modeling approach, we confirmed an indirect negative effect of Perceived Privacy Risk on Actual System Use through Perceived Enjoyment. Overall, our study suggests that SNS service providers need to actively manage people's perceptions of privacy risk.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.