Highlights A research model based on S-O-R framework is proposed to examine the factors that influence health information avoidance intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Information avoidance in the COVID-19 pandemic is determined by consumers’ negative affect: sadness, anxiety, and cognitive dissonance. Information avoidance intention influences consumers’ subsequent intentions of taking preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumer's negative affect is influenced by perceived threat and perceived information overload during the COVID-19 pandemic.

PurposeAlthough leveraging social media to access healthcare information is nothing new, a boom in short video apps offers new potential for disseminating health-related information. However, it is still unclear how short video apps might facilitate and benefit users’ consumption of health information. Furthermore, the technology features of short video apps complicate attempts to conduct research about them; as a consequence, they have been understudied. For addressing these concerns, this study adopts an affordance perspective to investigate the relationship between affordances and user experience and to examine factors that contribute to users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon affordance theory, we constructed a research model that integrates four types of affordances (livestreaming, searching, meta-voicing and recommending), three types of user experience (immersion, social presence and credibility perception), and user’s intention to continue use. We employed an online survey and obtained a sample of 372 valid responses from TikTok (DouYin) users in China. The partial least squares (PLS) method was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study found that the user experience, in terms of social presence, immersion and credibility perception, can significantly predict users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information. Furthermore, the user experience was positively associated with the different affordances provided by the short video apps.Originality/valueThe findings of this study have several implications. First, the study contributes to the health information behavior literature by incorporating the aspect of user experience. Moreover, the study extends the application of affordance theory to users’ health information acquisition, and it carries some practical implications on how to leverage the great potential of short video apps to serve public health communication better.

As emerging approaches, IT-based applications designed for encouraging pro-environmental behaviors have shown great potential. By focusing on Ant Forest, this study attempts to explore the embedded gamification design to identify key elements that lead to users’ long-term game participation which eventually fosters pro-environmental behaviors. First, a focus group interview was conducted to identify twenty-one gamification design elements in four modules: task design, social interaction, feedback, and reward. Furthermore, this study employed the Two-Dimensional Kano Model and better–worse analysis to classify and prioritize the gamification design elements that impact users’ attitudes toward Ant Forest. Five Attractive elements, five One-Dimensional elements, four Must-Be elements, and seven Indifferent elements were identified in Ant Forest from 207 questionnaires. The results emphasize the significant impact of gamification design elements that are highly correlated with environmental sustainability (i.e., green context, pro-environmental behaviors, plant a tree) in Ant Forest. In addition, users who are rewarded by both virtual medals and official certificates demonstrate higher satisfaction, whereas elements associated with social interaction and competition show trivial importance. This study has profound theoretical implications as an interdisciplinary study, and yields helpful insights for practice to improve Ant Forest design, promote Ant Forest usage and finally fuel pro-environmental behaviors.

Integrating research work and latest insights from the popular press on users' SNS switching, this study considers the role of trend and fatigue in why people switch from a SNS. Specifically, we employ a PPM framework as a theoretical foundation, and enrich it with constructs derived from juxtaposing recent practitioner insights and relevant literature, i.e., users' trend-seeking tendency; and SNS fatigue (activity overload and social monitoring concern). Through a survey of 305 SNS users, we find that factors previously derived based on PPMdissatisfaction, alternatives attractiveness, peer influence, and switching cost -indeed significantly influence users' switching intention. Furthermore, trend-seeking tendency, though not having a direct impact on switching intention, influences individuals' perceived alternative attractiveness. Similarly, social monitoring concern indirectly affects switching intention through alternative attractiveness, while also emanates its effect by raising user dissatisfaction. Lastly, SNS activity overload has both direct and indirect effects via alternative attractiveness and dissatisfaction.

Scientific collaboration is essential and almost imperative in modern science. However, collaboration may be difficult to achieve because of 2 major barriers: geographic distance and social divides. It is predicted that the advancement of information communication technologies (ICTs) will bring a puzzled conclusion for collaboration in the scientific community: the “Global Village” trend with significantly increased physical distance among collaborated scientists and the “Virtual Balkans” trend with significantly increased social stratification among collaborated scientists. The results of this study reveal that the scientific community evolves towards the Global Village generally on both the geographic and social dimension, but with variations in term of collaboration patterns. The influence of such collaboration patterns on research performance (that is, productivity and impact), however, is asymmetric to each side of collaborators. When researchers from top‐tier and general‐tier institutions collaborate, researchers from top‐tier institutions face a decrease in research productivity and impact, whereas researchers from general‐tier institutions increase in research productivity and impact. Furthermore, the development of ICTs plays an important role in shaping the evolving trends and moderating effects of collaboration patterns. Our findings provide a comprehensive understanding of scientific collaboration in the geographic, social, and technological aspect.