Understanding factors affecting perceived sociability of social software

Sociability is considered to be important to the success of social software. The goal of the current study is to identify factors that affect the users’ perception of the sociability of social software and to examine the impact of sociability on the users’ attitude and behavior intentions. In a pilot study, 35 web users were interviewed to gain understanding of how they use social software to supplement their social life and to explore the possible factors that influence the users’ utilization of social software. In the first study, a questionnaire was developed, and 163 valid responses were collected. From the factor analysis results, seven important factors for social software design emerged, which accounts for 63.3% of the total variance. In the second study, 246 participants were asked to evaluate one of ten popular social applications with respect to the seven factors, their perceived sociability, and their attitudes and intention regarding the use of the applications. Results show that sociability is influenced by social climate, benefits and purposes, people, interaction richness, self-presentation, and support for formal interaction. System competency is not a sociability factor, but it significantly influences the user’s experience. Sociability and system competency, when combined, can predict 43% of users’ attitude towards social software and 51% of their intentions to use social software.     

Correlates of Facebook usage patterns: The relationship between passive Facebook use,social anxiety symptoms,and brooding

Facebook (FB)¹ is a popular platform for interacting with others to establish or maintain relationships. Compared to other interpersonal exchanges, FB does not require in-person interactions. Therefore, FB may represent an important social sphere for individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD).² Examining the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and FB activity could inform future research on the benefits or consequences of FB use in SAD individuals. This study examined the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and different FB usage patterns. We also considered the role of brooding—a known risk factor for SAD. 75 nonclinical FB users completed questionnaires about psychological symptoms, FB usage, and brooding. Greater social anxiety symptoms were associated with spending more time on FB and passively using FB (i.e., viewing other’s profiles without interacting). Brooding mediated the relationship between passive FB use and social anxiety symptoms. An alternative model demonstrated that social anxiety symptoms mediated the association between passive FB use and brooding. This study was limited by its cross-sectional, self-report design. Future research should assess FB use with objective, real-time data and use experimental designs. Results have implications for the cognitive–behavioral model of SAD.     

Is social capital effective for online learning?

The popularity of online social networking has heightened academic interest in social capital. However, few studies have investigated the role of social capital in online learning. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of data from online MIS classes, we find that online learning facilitates social capital formation mostly in terms of the dimensions of community, trust, collective action and cooperation, communication, and sociability and inclusion, depending on the media-based human interaction forms of online learning employed. Structural equation modeling confirms a causal effect of social capital on student satisfaction. Social capital is also found to positively affect learning outcomes as measured by students’ group project scores but not class scores. The study's contribution to the literature and practice are discussed.     

Visual analysis of social networks in space and time using smartphone logs

We designed and applied interactive visualisation techniques for investigating how social networks are embedded in time and space, using data collected from smartphone logs. Our interest in spatial aspects of social networks is that they may reveal associations between participants missed by simply making contact through smartphone devices. Four linked and co-ordinated views of spatial, temporal, individual and social network aspects of the data, along with demographic and attitudinal variables, helped add context to the behaviours we observed. Using these techniques, we were able to characterise spatial and temporal aspects of participants’ social networks and suggest explanations for some of them. This provides some validation of our techniques.Unexpected deficiencies in the data that became apparent prompted us to evaluate the dataset in more detail. Contrary to what we expected, we found significant gaps in participant records, particularly in terms of location, a poorly connected sample of participants and asymmetries in reciprocal call logs. Although the data captured are of high quality, deficiencies such as these remain and are likely to have a significant impact on interpretations relating to spatial aspects of the social network. We argue that appropriately-designed interactive visualisation techniques–afforded by our flexible prototyping approach–are effective in identifying and characterising data inconsistencies. Such deficiencies are likely to exist in other similar datasets, and although the visual approaches we discuss for identifying data problems may not be scalable, the categories of problems we identify may be used to inform attempts to systematically account for errors in larger smartphone datasets.     

Smartphone addiction and its relationship with social anxiety and loneliness

Individuals with psychosocial problems such as social phobia or feelings of loneliness might be vulnerable to excessive use of cyber-technological devices, such as smartphones. We aimed to determine the relationship of smartphone addiction with social phobia and loneliness in a sample of university students in Istanbul, Turkey. Three hundred and sixty-seven students who owned smartphones were given the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS), UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS), and Brief Social Phobia Scale (BSPS). A significant difference was found in the mean SAS scores (p?<?.001) between users who declared that their main purpose for smartphone use was to access social networking sites. The BSPS scores showed positive correlations with all six subscales and with the total SAS scores. The total UCLA-LS scores were positively correlated with daily life disturbance, positive anticipation, cyber-oriented relationship, and total scores on the SAS. In regression analyses, total BSPS scores were significant predictors for SAS total scores (β?=?0.313, t?=?5.992, p?<?.001). In addition, BSPS scores were significant predictors for all six SAS subscales, whereas UCLA-LS scores were significant predictors for only cyber-oriented relationship subscale scores on the SAS (β?=?0.130, t?=?2.416, p?<?.05). The results of this study indicate that social phobia was associated with the risk for smartphone addiction in young people. Younger individuals who primarily use their smartphones to access social networking sites also have an excessive pattern of smartphone use.     

Ergonomic evaluation of the effects of forearm conditions and body postures on trapezius muscle activity during smartphone texting

Neck-shoulder and upper back musculoskeletal symptoms in smartphone users have gained increasing attention. We evaluated trapezius muscle activity and fatigue using an objective method (surface electromyography, sEMG), and discomfort using a subjective method (questionnaire), in smartphone users during the performance of different text-entry tasks. Fifteen participants were recruited to perform six text-entry tasks under different forearm conditions (floating and supported) and body postures (sitting, standing, lying, and walking). We collected upper trapezius (UT) and lower trapezius (LT) sEMG data, and recorded muscle discomfort scores after each task. We found that static postures (especially sitting) during smartphone use predisposed to lower muscle activity with higher fatigue level and discomfort scores than dynamic posture; there was a significant main effect of body posture on average sEMG amplitude (aEMG) and discomfort scores of both muscles (all p < 0.05). Moreover, using a smartphone with the forearm supported can reduce muscle activity, fatigue level, and discomfort scores; there was a significant main effect of the forearm condition on aEMG and discomfort scores of both muscles (all p < 0.05). Our study indicates that smartphone use with the forearm floating for a long time in a static posture should be avoided (especially while sitting).     

Social welfare maximization in participatory smartphone sensing

Participatory smartphone sensing has lately become more and more popular as a new paradigm for performing large-scale sensing, in which each smartphone contributes its sensed data for a collaborative sensing application. Most existing studies consider that smartphone users are strictly strategic and completely rational, which try to maximize their own payoffs. A number of incentive mechanisms are designed to encourage smartphone users to participate, which can achieve only suboptimal system performance. However, few existing studies can maximize a system-wide objective which takes both the platform and smartphone users into account. This paper focuses on the crucial problem of maximizing the system-wide performance or social welfare for a participatory smartphone sensing system. There are two great challenges. First, the social welfare maximization cannot be realized on the platform side because the cost of each user is private and unknown to the platform in reality. Second, the participatory sensing system is a large-scale real-time system due to the huge number of smartphone users who are geo-distributed in the whole world. A price-based decomposition framework is proposed in our previous work (Liu and Zhu, 2013), in which the platform provides a unit price for the sensing time spent by each user and the users return the sensing time via maximizing the monetary reward. This pricing framework is an effective incentive mechanism as users are motivated to participate for monetary rewards from the platform. In this paper, we propose two distributed solutions, which protect users’ privacy and achieve optimal social welfare. The first solution is designed based on the Lagrangian dual decomposition. A poplar iterative gradient algorithm is used to converge to the optimal value. Moreover, this distributed method is interpreted by our pricing framework. In the second solution, we first equivalently convert the original problem to an optimal pricing problem. Then, a distributed solution under the pricing framework via an efficient price-updating algorithm is proposed. Experimental results show that both two distributed solutions can achieve the maximum social welfare of a participatory smartphone system.     

An assessment of equivalence between paper and social media surveys: The role of social desirability and satisficing

Investigation of the underlying mechanisms responsible for measurement variance has received little attention. The primary objective of this study is to examine whether paper and social media surveys produce convergent results and investigate the underlying psychological mechanisms for the potential measurement nonequivalence. Particularly, we explored the role of social desirability and satisficing on the measurement results. We collected data via five different survey modes, including paper survey, ad hoc Web survey, online forum (message boards)-based, SNS-based and microblog-based surveys. The findings show that socially desirable responding does not lead to inconsistent results. Rather we found that satisficing causes inconsistent results in paper versus online surveys. Sociability reduces the possibility of engaging in satisficing that results in inconsistent results between traditional Web surveys and social media-based Web surveys.     

The dark side of smartphone usage: Psychological traits,compulsive behavior and technostress

Smartphones have become necessities in people’ lives. Along with its obvious benefits, however, the smartphone has other effects that are not all that glorious. This study investigates the dark side of the smartphone trend. We examine the link between psychological traits and the compulsive behaviors of smartphone users, and look further into the stress caused by those compulsive behaviors. We conducted an empirical study consisting of 325 participants and compared Structural Equation Modeling with competing models. The results suggest that compulsive usage of smartphone and technostress are positively related to psychological traits including locus of control, social interaction anxiety, materialism and the need for touch. Gender differences are also found in the aforementioned relationships. The results have practical implications to user-oriented smartphone design and operation companies as well as government agencies as they combat the social ills brought on by smartphones.     

Smartphones as Social Actors? Social dispositional factors in assessing anthropomorphism

Smartphones are prominently personalized and personified in our society. Existing Computers as Social Actors (CASA) studies about anthropomorphism and social interactions have focused on how to identify and elicit positive anthropomorphic effects but have seldom addressed motivations and dispositional factors of the user. Through an online survey that incorporates validated social psychological scales, this study provides empirical evidence that smartphone users’ social disposition, including factors of chronic loneliness, attachment style, and cultural orientation, is associated with their acceptance and awareness of anthropomorphism. The findings corroborate and add to the theory of sociality determinant of anthropomorphism, the computing technology continuum of perspective, and the CASA paradigm.     

Enhancing non-task sociability of asynchronous CSCL environments

While from a technological perspective Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) systems have been improved considerably, previous studies have shown that the social aspect of the CSCL is often neglected or assumed to happen automatically by simply creating such virtual learning environments. By distinguishing between students’ non-task social interactions from on-task interactions, and through a content analysis, this paper demonstrates that non-task interactions do occur frequently in CSCL environments. Furthermore, by conducting a self-reported survey, the present study operationalizes non-task sociability of CSCL environments and determines factors that affect them. The findings from the survey revealed that the sense of cohesion and awareness about others significantly impact the non-task sociability of CSCL. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the perception of self-representation and perception of compatibility affect the sense of cohesion and awareness about others and indirectly contribute to the perceived non-pedagogical sociability of the environment. The findings of this paper can be used in future research for investigating the relationship between the non-task sociability of CSCL and other CSCL factors. The study also provides the CSCL lecturers and facilitators with a conceptual model by which sociability can be explicitly addressed in their course planning and delivery processes. And finally, this study develops and validates an instrument that guides required changes in current CSCL systems to improve the non-task social functionality of the environment.     

Comparing factors affecting attitudes toward LBA and SoLoMo advertising

This study compares the effectiveness of location-based advertising (LBA) and social-local-mobile (SoLoMo) advertising. The results show that SoLoMo advertising is more effective than LBA. Consumers perceive a higher level of brand interaction, entertainment, informativeness, perceived location awareness, and sociability in SoLoMo advertising than in LBA. This study also discovers that there are differences in consumers’ reaction to the ads on different situational contexts and platforms. The academic contribution of this paper lies in the direct comparison of the effectiveness of LBA and SoLoMo advertising, which was lacking in the literature. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which comparison between LBA and SoLoMo advertising is made. This paper fills the gap by investigating how factors associated with advances of modern smartphone functionalities, brand interaction, perceived location awareness, and sociability, affect attitudes towards ads. It also contributes to the theory of effectiveness of telecommunication promotion by examining how consumers react to ads in different situational contexts on different platforms. Finally, this study provides practical suggestions.     

What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of technological environments and virtual customer experiences

Social commerce, as a relatively new phenomenon, has attracted little research attention. This study aims to provide initial insights into the dynamics of customer participation in social commerce. Based on the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study develops a model to investigate the effects of technological features (perceived interactivity, perceived personalization and perceived sociability) of social commerce on customers’ virtual experiences (social support, social presence and flow) and subsequently their participation intention. The results indicate that social commerce intention is determined by social support, social presence and flow experiences. These experiences, in turn, are influenced by perceived interactivity, personalization and sociability features.     

Implications of smartphone user privacy leakage from the advertiser’s perspective

Many smartphone apps routinely gather various private user data and send them to advertisers. Despite recent study on protection mechanisms and analysis on apps’ behavior, the understanding of the consequences of such privacy losses remains limited. In this paper, we investigate how much an advertiser can infer about users’ social and community relationships. After one month’s user study involving about 190 most popular Android apps, we find that an advertiser can infer 90% of the social relationships. We further propose a privacy leakage inference framework and use real mobility traces and Foursquare data to quantify the consequences of privacy leakage. We find that achieving 90% inference accuracy of the social and community relationships requires merely 3 weeks’ user data. Finally, we present a real-time privacy leakage visualization tool that captures and displays the spatial–temporal characteristics of the leakages. The discoveries underscore the importance of early adoption of privacy protection mechanisms.     

Specific smartphone uses and how they relate to anxiety and depression in university students: a cross-cultural perspective

ABSTRACT

People around the world spend hours of their daily lives using smartphones; therefore, it is important to conduct cross-cultural research on the effects of smartphone use on health and well-being as culture influences values, motivations and communication patterns. The purpose of this study was to explore 5 popular uses of the smartphone – messaging, browsing the Internet, posting social content, reading social content, and playing games – how they relate to anxiety and depression scores, and how they vary depending on the country of the participants: Spain, the United States, and Colombia. In all three countries the ranking of most popular uses was the same: (1) Messaging, (2) Reading social content, and (3) Browsing the Internet. In the USA, game playing contributed to anxiety scores whereas reading social content was a protective factor; regarding depression scores, text messaging was a contributing factor. In Spain, browsing the Internet contributed to anxiety scores; regarding depression scores, messaging was a contributing factor and posting social content was a protective factor. In Colombia, no specific use influenced anxiety scores; regarding depression scores, only game playing was a protective factor. Our results showed that in all the countries, problematic smartphone use contributed to anxiety scores.     

Analysis of critical factors for social games based on extended technology acceptance model: a DEMATEL approach

In recent years, social games such as ‘Farmville’ and ‘Pokémon Go’ have become a major game type in the gaming industry. This study examines the importance of different factors in social games using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and DEMATEL. The result shows ‘social norm’ as the most important factor overall. It is also found that ‘pleasure’ and ‘sociability’ are the most important aspects in ‘perceived enjoyment’. Regarding key aspects in each factor, ‘flow experience’ is crucial in ‘perceived attractiveness’, ‘game fairness’ largely influential in ‘social norm’, and ‘reputation of platform and service provider’ a decisive aspect in ‘platform service and corporate image’. These findings and analyses are apt references for social game providers to improve their services.     

Cross-generational analysis of predictive factors of addictive behavior in smartphone usage

Smartphone addiction has been widely researched in recent years, and the effects of various demographic, personality-linked, psychological, and emotional variables, have been found. Our research goal was to examine this phenomenon from the cross-generational perspective and compare the factors that can predict smartphone addiction for different age groups. We conducted a study with 216 Israeli smartphone users, representing three generations of smartphone users: Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z, who filled in an 80-item questionnaire. The factors examined included the social environment pressure to use smartphone, emotional gain from smartphones, personality, daily usage time, various mobile apps and user needs. The main finding of the study is that a significantly higher level of addictive behavior was found for Generation Y compared to the other two generations. The strongest predictive factors in the computed hierarchical regression model for all three generations were social environment pressure and emotional gain. Interestingly, emotional gain from smartphone use, which reflects users' enjoyment and positive emotions along with relief of negative emotions and psychological states, was significantly higher for generation Z than for the older generations. In addition, neuroticism and the daily usage time appeared as predictive factors for the younger generations, and for Generation Z alone the WhatsApp app usage was found as a significant predictive factor as well. This study contributes to understanding the factors of smartphone addictive behavior for different generations, which might lead to more effective educational measures and explanatory campaigns on technology effects on psychological well-being.     

Defining sociability and social presence in Social TV

Social TV, a new interactive television service, has been rapidly developing. With the conceptual model of sociability, this study empirically investigates the effects of perceived sociability on the motivations and attitudes toward Social TV. A model is created to validate the relationship of perceived sociality to social presence, usability, and intention. Empirical findings show the key influence of sociability on users’ acceptance and intent to continue using Social TV. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable TV interface.     

The effects of shoulder posture on neck and shoulder musculoskeletal loading and discomfort during smartphone usage

While using their smartphone, users tend to adopt awkward neck and shoulder postures for an extended duration. Such postures impose the risk of MSDs on those body parts. Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine neck posture; however, few studies have investigated shoulder postures. This study examined various shoulder postures during smartphone use and their effect on neck and shoulder kinematics, muscle loading, and neck/shoulder discomfort. Thirty-two asymptomatic young adult smartphone users randomly performed texting tasks for 3 min at four different shoulder flexion angles (15°, 30°, 45°, and 60°), while maintained a neck posture in the neutral position (0° neck flexion angle). Measures were taken of neck and shoulder muscle activity of the cervical erector spinae (CES), anterior deltoid (AD), upper trapezius (UT) and lower trapezius (LT), and kinematic data (angle, distance and gravitational moment). Results showed AD and LT muscle activity significantly increased when the shoulder flexion angle increased with an opposite effect on CES and UT. A recommended shoulder posture was identified as 30° flexion, as this yielded the best compromise between activation levels of the four muscles studied. This angle also induced the lowest neck/shoulder discomfort score. The findings suggest smartphone users hold their device at approximately 30° shoulder flexion angle with their neck in a neutral posture to reduce the risk of shoulder and neck musculoskeletal disorders when smartphone texting.Relevance to industrySmartphone use in the manufacturing and service industries is an integral part of work and useful means of communication tool. Awkward postures during extensive smartphone use impose an increased risk of both neck and shoulder musculoskeletal disorders. Shoulder flexion angles need consideration when making recommendations about safe work postures during smartphone use.     

Relationship analysis between body flexion angles and smartphone tilt during smartphone use

Although smartphones are used as essential devices in everyday life, many users are exposed to joint diseases owing to prolonged use. The objectives of this study were to analyze how posture and smartphone tasks affect various body flexion angles and develop an algorithm to classify posture/task and estimate body flexion angles using smartphone tilt data. Eighteen participants performed two tasks (playing a game and reading news) in two postures (sitting and standing) in a laboratory environment. The three-axis orientation data (azimuth, pitch, and roll) of the smartphone and the participants’ body flexion angles were measured simultaneously. This study found that the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and overall flexion angles were all statistically significantly different depending on the posture of the smartphone user, and the cervical flexion angle was significantly different depending on the task. Furthermore, task and task × posture can be classified with high accuracy based on smartphone tilt data, and tilt data had a high correlation with body flexion angles. Relevance to industry: The results of this study can be used as a reference for designing various products and interfaces for neck health. The results can be applied as a smartphone alarm or a built-in application, which can inform the user of the need to stretch his or her neck.