Social media environments effect on perceived interactivity

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to treat WeChat moments as social media environments and applies the research model to explore the effect of social media environments on perceived interactivity from the perspective of environmental psychology. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes social media environments as effective stimuli for future participate in online social interactions. First, two cues of social media environments (user-to-system cues and user-to-user cues) can be important antecedents of users’ perception of interactivity. Second, users’ intention of future participates in online social interactions can be influenced by three dimensions of perceived interactivity (action control, connectedness and responsiveness). Using data from 334 users of WeChat moments, the authors conduct partial least squares analysis to validate the research model. Findings The results indicate that both technological and social environments positively affect three dimensions of perceived interactivity, respectively, including action control, connectedness and responsiveness. Moreover, actual findings also suggest that higher perceived interactivity increases users’ intention of future participate in online social interactions. Originality/value This work contributes to in-depth research on the relationships between social environments and perceived interactivity. Besides, this paper demonstrates that both technological and social cues of social media environments are significant elements in simulating users’ internal experience and behavioral intention. The main conclusions of this study can be valuable to social media developers and managers.

Understanding the Highly Sensitive Health Communication Behavior in Social Media from the Perspective of the Risk Perception Attitude Framework and Perceived Interactivity

“…Perceived interactivity is widely recognized for its influence on user acceptance and continuance intention [11,26,49]. Lin and Chang found that perceived interactivity affects health management efficiency, social relationship efficiency, and health information exchange in social media users [8].…”

“…By contrast, human-human interaction reflects the convenience of interpersonal interactions between social media users [8,28], which can be evaluated along the dimensions of connectivity, responsiveness, and relationship [11]. Panteli and Sockalingam [55] and Chang [49] found that sustained and lasting online interactions with others enable users to build mutual trust, which, in turn, facilitates trusting behaviors, such as the sharing and adoption of health information.…”

“…MST [32] holds that the information transmission and processing capabilities of a type of media affect the quality and performance of communications [8,57]. Therefore, human-information interaction, which reflects the ability of social media to spread and process information, will affect people's performance in acquiring health information and knowledge and health self-efficacy [11,49]. Accordingly, we propose the following hypothesis:…”

“…The foremost topic feature of this assistance is "the widening and accessibility access of health information to a variety of individual groups" [10]. Two-way communication channels support realtime and convenient interaction and dialogue between users [11].…”

“…Interactivity is the most prominent feature of social media. Environmental psychology holds that an individual's perceived interactivity in a social media environment is an important variable for his or her intention to perform health communication [11,33]. Therefore, perceived interactivity is adopted as an environmental variable in this study.…”