Text me when it becomes dangerous: Exploring the determinants of college students’ adoption of mobile-based text alerts short message service

Guided by Davis’ (1986) technology acceptance model (TAM) and Brehm’s (1989) reactance theory, this study sought to explore the determinants of college students’ adoption of mobile-based text alert short message service (SMS). The findings of the study supported the primary argument of the model that individuals’ adoption of text alert SMS for emergency preparedness and response should be largely determined by social psychological factors, such as attitude toward, subjective norm associated with, and perceived intrusiveness of the SMS. In addition, the findings demonstrated that subjective norm of and attitude toward the service prompted individuals’ actual adoption whereas intrusiveness of the service served as a distinctive barrier to the actual adoption behavior. Finally, the findings also showed that the probability of adopting the text alert SMS was not directly increased by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the service, but was indirectly affected by the two antecedents through ones’ attitude toward the use of the SMS. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes,Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences

This article investigates Facebook users' awareness of privacy issues and perceived benefits and risks of utilizing Facebook. Research found that Facebook is deeply integrated in users' daily lives through specific routines and rituals. Users claimed to understand privacy issues, yet reported uploading large amounts of personal information. Risks to privacy invasion were ascribed more to others than to the self. However, users reporting privacy invasion were more likely to change privacy settings than those merely hearing about others' privacy invasions. Results suggest that this lax attitude may be based on a combination of high gratification, usage patterns, and a psychological mechanism similar to third‐person effect. Safer use of social network services would thus require changes in user attitude.     

Exploring factors affecting Chinese consumers' usage of short message service for personal communication

Abstract. Short message service (SMS) is very popular in China. While many reports indicate that the SMS market has great potential, little is known about why people adopt SMS. This study uses the technology acceptance model and network externalities to examine the factors influencing the adoption of SMS for personal communication in China. Using data collected from 262 mobile phone users, we find that perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived service cost affect SMS use. Perceived network externalities also contribute to higher perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and affect SMS adoption. The results provide insight to SMS marketing strategies.     

Effects of Online Comments on Smokers' Perception of Antismoking Public Service Announcements

On YouTube antismoking PSAs are widely viewed and uploaded; they also receive extensive commentary by viewers. This study examined whether such evaluative comments with or without uncivil expressions influence evaluations by subsequent viewers. Results showed PSAs with positive (i.e. antismoking) comments were perceived by smokers as more effective than PSAs with negative (prosmoking) comments. Smokers in the no‐comment condition gave the highest perceived effectiveness score to PSAs. Smokers' readiness to quit smoking moderated the effect of comments on PSA evaluation. Smokers reading negative uncivil comments reported more negative attitude toward quitting and a lower level of perceived risk of smoking than those reading negative civil comments but positive civil and positive uncivil comments did not elicit different responses.     

Perceived usefulness of,engagement with,and effectiveness of virtual reality environments in learning industrial operations: the moderating role of openness to experience

The development of virtual reality (VR) in enhancing the effectiveness of the learning process, with its interactive, immersive, and intuitive pedagogical environment, has become a necessity for corporations with increasingly complex operations. However, VR users’ perceptions, openness and learning effectiveness are seldom comprehensively evaluated, particularly in learning complex industrial operations. In this study, grounded in the technology acceptance model, a moderated mediation model of perceived usefulness, ease of use, openness to experience, and engagement in VR-based learning was developed. The model was empirically validated using responses collected from 321 users who were trained on aircraft and cargo terminal operations powered by a novel VR-based learning platform. A survey to measure openness to experience and a pre-training performance test were carried out, followed by a post-training survey of learners’ intrinsic factors, including the influence of perceived usefulness, openness to experience, and attitude towards learning. The study revealed that learners with an open attitude towards experiencing new technology tend to perceive VR technology as a useful platform for training. In addition, the learners with more positive views of VR technology-supported training were more engaged in learning.

     

Service Quality and Perceived Value's Impact on Satisfaction, Intention and Usage of Short Message Service (SMS)

SMS, being an almost instantaneous communication medium that connects people, is now a phenomenon that has grown and spread around the globe at an amazing speed. Given the current trend of SMS usage and its potential growth, this paper will provide an insight of the extent to which how service quality and the value perceived by the SMS users have an impact on their extent of the SMS usage in the post SMS adoption phase. Specifically, this article will examine how service quality of the service providers and perceived value affect customer satisfaction and how customer satisfaction will affect their behavioural intention to continue to use SMS which in turn affects the extent of SMS usage in the local context. Using partial-least-squares, an analysis was conducted based on the 150 surveys collected to test for the proposed relationships. The results showed that the tangibles, empathy and assurance dimensions of service quality are antecedents of customer satisfaction and a positive relationship exists between customer satisfaction and customers' behavioural intentions to continue to use SMS. Additionally, the positive relationship between customers' behavioural intentions to continue to use SMS and the extent of SMS usage is also significant. These results were similar to the results shown by Cronin and Taylor (1992) studies. The perceived value/customer satisfaction relationship investigated in this research was in line with Fornell et al.(1996) and Cronin et al.(2000) where perceived value was one of the determinants of customer satisfaction. Specially, the results revealed that perceived value, together with tangibles, empathy and assurance aspects of the service quality, played an important role in determining customer satisfaction for SMS. Implications of the above results for research and practice are discussed.     

Extended technology acceptance model of Internet utilization behavior

Based on the belief–attitude–performance chain, this study combines Davis’s technology acceptance model (TAM) and the information behavior model to develop an extended TAM for Internet use. The theoretical model was tested via a questionnaire survey of 203 Taiwanese office workers. The empirical results not only confirmed TAM, but also showed that the relevance of information needs strongly determines perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user attitudes toward Internet use for information seeking, as well as strongly influencing individual performance during the information use stage. More importantly, relevance has greater positive effect on perceived performance and perceived usefulness for enterprise Intranet users than for simple/interactive Intraweb users. Enterprise Intranet users have more positive attitudes toward the Internet and more positive perceptions of system effectiveness for supporting office tasks than simple/interactive Intraweb users. Furthermore, perceived ease of use is the strongest determinant of user attitude toward Internet use in both enterprise Intranet and simple/interactive Intraweb applications. Overall, the extended TAM explains the behavior of enterprise Intranet users better than that of simple/interactive Intraweb users. Limitations of this study are discussed.     

Factors affecting reposting behaviour using a mobile phone-based user-generated-content online community application among Chinese young adults

Mobile phone-based user-generated-content (UGC) online community applications have gained increasing popularity among young generations. However, factors that may affect usage behaviour regarding the applications are not fully investigated. In this study, we employed the Technology Acceptance Model as the basis to explore factors that are able to predict user reposting behaviour with the applications. University students (N?=?322) completed a self-reported questionnaire for measuring the studied constructs after they experienced a high-fidelity prototype of a mobile UGC online community application. Results from path analysis demonstrated that perceived usefulness and attitude towards usage were significant determinants of user reposting intention, with 23% of its variance explained. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and information credibility directly predicted attitude towards usage and accounted for 45% of its variance. Perceived ease of use exerted influence on both perceived usefulness and information credibility. The findings can enhance our understanding of factors that contribute to user reposting behaviour and provide insight into design and implementation strategies to increase the likelihood of user intention to repost information using mobile UGC online community applications.     

Social Media as a Tool to Help Select Tourism Destinations: The Case of Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This study modeled use of social media as a tool to select tourism destinations. The findings revealed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) directly influenced the attitude and has an indirect effect on intention with the presence of attitude. The development of tourism marketing and communication strategies should focus on the online context as the factors which are capable of influencing tourists’ behavior in a more efficient way.     

A Model of Green Acceptance and Intentions to Use Bike-Sharing: YouBike Users in Taiwan

With the emphasis on sustainability in transportation, bike-sharing systems are gaining popularity. This paper investigates the attitudes of users of a bike-sharing system with the aim of identifying their priorities, thus allowing local governments to focus their efforts most effectively on enhancing users’ intentions to use such systems. The relationships among green perceived usefulness (the extent to which individuals believe that a bike-sharing system will improve the environmental performance of some part of their life within a specific context), user attitude and perceived ease of use with green intentions, and the mediation effect of user attitude towards bike-sharing are explored. The focus of the study is on how to enhance green intentions via perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and user attitude of the green technology acceptance model (green TAM) (Davis 1989). The two-step approach of structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the empirical results, which indicated that green perceived usefulness and user attitude have positive influences on the green intentions of 262 users and 262 non-users from ten sampled bike-sharing sites around the central administrative districts of Taipei. However, user attitude has the highest mediation effect on green intentions, and perceived ease of use does not have a significant effect on intentions for either users or non-users. Therefore, governmental institutions can strive to improve the attitudes of bike-sharing users and non-users, their green perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use to strengthen their intentions to use this mode of sustainable transportation.     

Understanding driver adoption of car navigation systems using the extended technology acceptance model

This study proposes an integrated research model for investigating driver adoption of car navigation systems. We consider the potential causal connections between core cognitive and psychological factors and driver intention to use these systems. We extracted possible factors that may significantly affect the perceived usability of car navigation systems from in-depth interviews with two groups of individuals: an expert group and a driver group. Data collected from N?=?1045 drivers via an online survey were analysed by structural equation modelling. The results showed that the service & display quality components of the systems were the most significant determinants of driver attitude and intention to use car navigation systems. Two other factors, namely attitude and perceived usefulness, also had impacts on driver intention. Moreover, both satisfaction and service & display quality were affected by perceived system reliability, while usefulness was affected by both perceived locational accuracy and satisfaction. Satisfaction also significantly affected perceived ease of use. In addition, we introduced new external variables to the technology acceptance model (TAM) and validated the causal connections proposed by the original TAM. The present study provides valuable insights into the core factors that significantly affect driver perspectives of and intention to use car navigation systems.     

A user study of accessing web applications via voice cellular phone: a model comparison approach

Although most users currently receive web services from web browser interfaces, pervasive computing is emerging and offering new ways of accessing Internet applications from any device, any time and anywhere. It is not only a technological change, but a philosophical and psychological one. Our research project investigated the theoretical concepts of pervasive computing as well as their practical applications, by using cellular phones as the pervasive device to access a web application prototype, the voice-enabled web system (VWS), through the voice user interface technology. The acceptance rate of consumers on new pervasive interfaces was studied using factors (including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and fun) adapted from technology acceptance theories. Although our empirical findings were in general consistent with the findings from several prior studies on various information technologies, there were still some discrepancies. Our overall research results, including the implications derived from the user study, may be useful for the purpose of designing and developing successful business applications based on VWS.     

Understanding the behavior of mobile data services consumers

Due to rapid advances in the Internet and wireless technologies, a ubiquitous computing world is becoming a reality in the form of mobile computing. At the center of this phenomenon is mobile data services which arise from the convergence of advanced mobile communication technologies with data services. Despite the rapid growth in mobile data services, research into consumers’ usage behavior is scarce. This study attempts to identify and empirically assess the factors that drive consumers’ acceptance of mobile data services. A research model based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior and incorporating factors that represent personal needs and motivations in using mobile data services is presented. The model is tested via an online survey of 811 consumers of four categories of mobile data services (i.e., communications, information content, entertainment, and commercial transactions) associated with different usage contexts. We found that attitude, social influence, media influence, perceived mobility, and perceived monetary value influence consumers’ intention to continue usage of mobile data services. In addition, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived enjoyment influence attitude toward continued usage of mobile data services. Finally, separate analysis of the different categories of mobile data services highlights the influence of individual usage context on consumers’ behavior.

Counseling Young Cannabis Users by Text Message

This article presents a study of 2 Short Message Services (SMS) aimed at providing young people with information on cannabis and helping them to reduce their consumption of the drug. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 12 young people. The attitude of the participants in the study towards the predefined messages is generally positive, but they prefer factual information to advice and counseling. The messages prompt reflection and awareness among the recipients, and their repetitive, serial nature plays a significant part in the process of change.The SMS services offer a less demanding, potentially less confrontational alternative to traditional forms of counseling and treatment. The article compares text message counseling with web‐based interventions and telephone help lines.     

Perception of Interactivity: Affects of Four Key Variables in Mobile Advertising

There are indications that interactivity could benefit the effectiveness of mobile advertisements. But there are few guidelines on how to design interactive mobile advertisements. This study investigated the influences of various design features of mobile advertisements on perceived interactivity and the relationship between perceived interactivity and attitude toward mobile advertisements. An experiment consisting of 2 sessions was conducted to test 5 proposed hypotheses with 40 participants. Results showed that the number of user control options and the customizability of advertisements have significant influences on users' perception of interactivity. The more options a message advertisement provides, the more interactive the participants perceive the advertisement; a customizable game advertisement is perceived as more interactive than an uncustomizable game advertisement. But no significant effects of presenting instructional information of mobile Web advertisements and including humorous elements were found. Finally, perceived interactivity was found a strong predictor of attitude toward mobile advertisement.     

基于Web的短信课程答疑系统的设计

移动通信是近年来发展较快的通信技术,移动通信设备（如手机等）使用方便灵活,随着终端硬件和通讯费用的不断降低,其普及推广的速度惊人。在这样的背景下,短信息服务是我国普及的通信服务,将其应用于远程教育领域,针对远程答疑中现存的问题,充分利用其成本低、普及率高、灵活便捷的特点和优势,设计并开发基于Web的短信课程答疑系统,将其应用于远程答疑中。     

Determinants of academic use of the Internet: A structural equation model

The last decade of the 20th century brought radical changes in information and communication technology. Internet usage is being widely researched in the business world. However, the use of the Internet in academic settings in general and in vocational and technical establishment in particular is a neglected area. Successful use of the Internet is largely dependent upon the user's behaviour that, in turn, affects their attitudes. Even when remarkable opportunities exist for the deployment of technology, adverse attitude can inhibit use. Keeping this in mind, a survey of 166 academics of four technical and vocational colleges was conducted to study the attitudes of academics toward the use of the Internet. This study develops a model and validates two specific attitudinal variables--perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use--which are hypothesized to be fundamental determinants of use of the Internet. Adding two more variables--such as task characteristics and computer exposure--test the parsimony of the model further. A structural equation modelling technique is used to validate the model. The study confirmed that 79% of academics are using the Internet. Computer experience, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use remain to be fundamental determinants of attitude formation. No other variables have been found to be significant.     

e-Learning continuance intention: Moderating effects of user e-learning experience

This study explores the determinants of the e-learning continuance intention of users with different levels of e-learning experience and examines the moderating effects of e-learning experience on the relationships among the determinants. The research hypotheses are empirically validated using the responses received from a survey of 256 users. The results reveal that negative critical incidents and attitude are the main determinants of the users’ intention to continue using the e-learning, irrespective of their level of e-learning experience. In addition, the findings show that the user’s experience of the e-learning service plays a moderating role. The impact of negative critical incidents on perceived ease of use is greater for less experienced users. By contrast, the impact of negative critical incidents on perceived usefulness is greater for more experienced users. Perceived ease of use has a more critical effect on the attitude and continuance intention of less experienced users, whereas perceived usefulness is found to be a stronger determinant of the attitude and behavioral intention of more experienced users. Moreover, the relationship between satisfaction and continuance intention is stronger for less experienced users than for more experienced users. The implications of the present findings for research and managerial practice are analyzed and discussed.     

Acceptance of Internet-based learning medium: the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

This study is one of the few attempts to investigate students’ acceptance of an Internet-based learning medium (ILM). By integrating a motivational perspective into the technology acceptance model, our model captured both extrinsic (perceived usefulness and ease of use) and intrinsic (perceived enjoyment) motivators for explaining students’ intention to use the new learning medium. Data collected from 544 undergraduate students were examined through the LISREL VIII framework. The results showed that both perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment significantly and directly impacted their intention to use ILM. Surprisingly, perceive ease of use did not posit a significant impact on student attitude or intention towards ILM usage. Implications of this study are important for both researchers and practitioners.