Effects of social attachment on social media continuous usage intention: The mediating role of affective commitment

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Social attachment has been identified as a key antecedent motivating users’ social media involvement. However, there is a scarcity of research investigating whether and how three dimensions of social attachment exert impacts on users’ continuous usage intention of social media. OBJECTIVE: Based on structural equation model analysis, the current research clarifies the relationships between social attachment, affective commitment and social media continuous usage intention, which unveils the underlying mechanism through which three dimensions of social attachment influence users’ continuous usage intention of social media. METHODS: A survey was conducted with 536 informative responses obtained from TikTok public users for hypothesis testing analysis. RESULTS: Results indicate that three dimensions of social attachment (social connections, social dependence and social identity) are all positively related to users’ continuous usage intention of social media. Affective commitment partially mediates the relationship between social attachment and users’ continuous usage intention of social media. CONCLUSIONS: The current research makes an in-depth study about the underlying mechanism whereby social attachment exerts impacts on social media continuous usage intentionand provides several managerial and theoretical implications. Future research directions are discussed as well.

Understanding the Mechanism of Social Attachment Role in Social Media: A Qualitative Analysis

“…Through social activities, users can gain support from others and a sense of belonging (Cho et al, 2014), for example, the effects of factors related to social needs, such as social needs, maintaining relationships, and establishing new relationships, on user behavior (Dermentzi et al, 2016;Jung and Sundar, 2016). The existing literature believes that through the group chat, sharing and private message functions provided by social media, users can meet like-minded friends and maintain relationships with them (Gan et al, 2018b;Chen et al, 2020;Hu et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2020).…”

Accessing the Influence of Perceived Value on Social Attachment: Developing Country Perspective

“…This view has been further tested and supported by domestic scholars. Taking the popular short-video social media in China as the research object, Yang et al (2021a) explore the relationship between users' perceived value and their attachment to the social media and find that users' sense of belonging has a significant positive effect on their attachment, and the stronger the degree of belonging of short-video social media users, the stronger their attachment to the continued use of short-video social media. Therefore, it is known that the user's sense of belonging in the context of social media use can have an influential effect on social attachment.…”

“…A 16-item scale, proposed by Yang et al (2021a), were adopted to measure three dimensions of social attachment, among which 5 items were used to measure social connection, 5 items for measuring social identity and 6 for assessing social dependence. This scale is rated on a 7-point response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).…”

“…Thus, social attachment may be influenced by perceived value, which produces specific satisfaction of various needs of the user, which in turn influences the user's perception of social media; and treats the self as part of social media, and with the continuous satisfaction of individual perception, the user develops emotional attachment to social media and continuously invests time, energy and even money in social media. This investment ultimately strengthens the bond between the user and the social media, creating a sense of closeness and dependency, which in turn leads to a strong long-term connection (Yang et al, 2021a).…”

Development and Validity Test of Social Attachment Multidimensional Scale

“…In recent years, with the rapid development and in-depth application of the new round of information technology, as well as the comprehensive popularity and flourishing of local social media, a boom in theoretical research around the theme of attachment relationship between users and local social media has begun to emerge, becoming a valuable and theoretically constructive theme ( Chen et al, 2020 ; Yang et al, 2021a ). There is a growing awareness in business and academia that exploring social attachment can help companies acquire new ways of operating and growing, and gain and maintain a competitive advantage ( Goel et al, 2011 ), and that generating social attachments may be the key to the persistent use behavior of local social media users in a virtual environment ( Yang et al, 2021b ).…”