Instagram限時動態使用與心理影響研究 - 政大學術集成

全文

(1)國立政治⼤學國際傳播英語碩⼠學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University. 碩⼠論⽂ Master’s Thesis. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. Instagram 限時動態使⽤與⼼理影響研究 Decoding the Popularity of Instagram Stories: Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of Engagement with Instagram Stories al iv n Ch engchi U n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Student: 盧佳岱 Evelyn Jia-Dai Lu Advisor: 林芝璇 Elaine Jhih-Syuan Lin, Ph.D.. 中華民國 109 年 1 月 January 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(2) Instagram 限時動態使⽤與⼼理影響研究 Decoding the Popularity of Instagram Stories: Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of Engagement with Instagram Stories. 研究⽣：盧佳岱指導教授：林芝璇. Advisor: Elaine Jhih-Syuan Lin. 政治大. 國立政治⼤學. 國際傳播英語碩⼠學位學程. 學. 碩⼠論⽂. ‧. ‧ 國. 立. Student: Evelyn Jia-Dai Lu. A Thesis. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. n. iv n C Submitted to International Program in h e n g Master’s chi U International Communication Studies National Chengchi University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master of Arts. 中華民國 109 年 1 月 January 2020 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT If high school is enlightenment, college is inspiration, then graduate school is life. And it’s indeed such a perfect ending of my education that I am so grateful for everything. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Elaine Jhih-Syuan Lin, who advanced my understanding of the research field to another level and who made the academic world more approachable. I would not have made it without her persistent support. I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation to the committee members, Dr. Tsung-Jen Shih and Dr. Szu-Wei Chen for the constructive feedback and helpful advice. I would also like to thank the faculty members of Department of English at Fu Jen University, who inspired me to pursue academic. 政治大 Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my beloved family, my dad, my 立 goals.. mom, and my brother, and my dear friends for providing me with unfailing support. ‧ 國. 學. and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the journey of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been. ‧. possible without them. I couldn’t be more grateful for them!. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(4) ABSTRACT Considering the popularity of Instagram Stories among young adults, this research examines why and how Millennials consume, contribute, and create content on Instagram Stories and how their engagement levels are related to emotions and social media dependency. First, a pretest was conducted to generate a list of motivation items for understanding the drivers behind Instagram Stories usage. Second, a sample of 296 U.S. Millennials was surveyed to investigate users’ motivations for using Instagram Stories as well as how the different uses influence psychological outcomes. The findings suggest that eight types of motivations emerged from the data: exploration, recognition seeking, perceived functionality, entertainment, social sharing, interaction, novelty, and surveillance. Specifically, entertainment and. 政治大 and interaction are associated with both contribution and creation on it, and 立. perceived functionality are related to consumption of Instagram Stories, social sharing recognition seeking and novelty are linked to Instagram Stories creation. Besides, the. ‧ 國. 學. results also reveal that the positive relationship between engagement and social media dependency is mediated by both positive and negative emotions. Even though positive. ‧. emotions are found to be more prevalent during Instagram Stories use than negative. y. Nat. emotions, the relationship between negative emotions and social media dependency is. sit. found to be stronger than that between positive emotions and social media. al. er. io. dependency. Implications and limitations of this research are discussed.. n. iv n C h eInstagram Keywords: communication technology, i U uses and gratifications, n g c h Stories, engagement, positive emotions, social media dependency. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 2. Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 4 2.1. Image-sharing SNSs ............................................................................................ 4 2.2. Instagram Stories ................................................................................................. 5 2.3. Uses and Gratifications and SNS Motivations .................................................... 7 2.4. Engagement ....................................................................................................... 10 2.4.1. Conceptualization of Engagement ........................................................... 10 2.4.2. Social Media Engagement ........................................................................ 12 2.5. Psychological Consequences of Social Media Engagement ............................. 15. 政治大 Social Media Dependency ........................................................................ 20 立 Engagement and Social Media Dependency ............................................ 21. 2.5.1. Emotional Outcomes of Social Media Use .............................................. 15 2.5.2.. 學. ‧ 國. 2.5.3.. 2.5.4. The Mediating Role of Emotions ............................................................. 23 3. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 27. ‧. 3.1. Overview of the Research ................................................................................. 27. sit. y. Nat. 3.2. Pretest: Exploratory Stage ................................................................................. 28 3.2.1. Participants ............................................................................................... 28. io. n. al. er. 3.2.2. Procedure .................................................................................................. 29. i n U. v. 3.2.3. Results ...................................................................................................... 30. Ch. engchi. 3.3. Main Study: Survey ........................................................................................... 33 3.3.1. Participants and Procedure ....................................................................... 33 3.3.2. Measures................................................................................................... 34 3.3.2.1. Motivations for Using Instagram Stories ............................................ 34 3.3.2.2. Instagram Stories Engagement ............................................................ 35 3.3.2.3. Emotional Outcomes ........................................................................... 36 3.3.2.4. Social Media Dependency ................................................................... 36 4. Results .................................................................................................................... 38 4.1. Descriptive Analysis ......................................................................................... 38 4.2. Factor Analysis .................................................................................................. 41 4.3. Regression Analysis .......................................................................................... 45 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(6) 4.4. Mediation Analysis ........................................................................................... 47 5. Discussion and Conclusion .................................................................................... 50 5.1. The Typology of Motivations for Instagram Stories Use ................................. 50 5.2. The Relationship between Motives and Engagement ....................................... 53 5.3. Engagement with Instagram Stories and the Resulting Emotional Outcomes .. 55 5.4. Engagement, Positive Emotions, and Social Media Dependency ..................... 52 5.5. Research Contributions ..................................................................................... 58 5.6. Limitations and Future Research....................................................................... 59 5.7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 60 References .................................................................................................................... 62 Appendices ................................................................................................................... 72. 治政大 Appendix B. Survey Questionnaire .............................................................................. 76 立 Appendix A. Pretest Questionnaire .............................................................................. 72. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(7) LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES Table 1. Sample Demographic Characteristics ............................................................ 29 Table 2. Frequency of Using Instagram Stories ........................................................... 30 Table 3. The List of Newly Coded 48 Items Based on the Results of the Pretest ....... 30 Table 4. The List of Motivations Derived from the U&G Literature .......................... 32 Table 5. Motivation Items for using Instagram Stories ................................................ 34 Table 6. Sample Demographics ................................................................................... 38 Table 7. Descriptive Statistics of Motivations for Using Instagram Stories ................ 39 Table 8. Descriptive for Engagement with Instagram Stories ..................................... 40. 政治大. Table 9. Descriptive for emotional outcomes of Instagram Stories use....................... 41 Table 10. Descriptive for Social Media Dependency .................................................. 41. 立. Table 11. Summary of Exploratory Factor Analysis Results for Motivations ............. 44. ‧ 國. 學. Table 12. Summary of Regression Results of Motivations Predicting Engagement ... 46 Table 13. Summary of Regression Results of Engagement Predicting Emotions ....... 47. sit. y. Nat. FIGURES. ‧. Table 14. Standardized Effects of Engagement on Social Media Dependency ........... 48. n. al. er. io. Figure 1. Tested simple mediation model .................................................................... 49. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(8) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, social networking sites (SNSs) have been the game changer for interpersonal communication, partially replacing previous modes of social interaction and the ways people acquire information (Ku, Chu, & Tseng, 2013). With the prevalence of social media, people are able to connect with brands, organizations, and one another on different social media platforms by sharing thoughts, communicating and interacting in various ways such as instant messages, posts and images. As of 2019, 72% of Americans use social media. While YouTube and Facebook dominated the social media world with 73 percent and 69 percent of U.S.. 政治大. adults using them, Instagram (37 percent), Pinterest (28 percent), LinkedIn (27. 立. percent), Snapchat (24 percent), and Twitter (22 percent) held the smaller shares (Pew,. ‧ 國. 學. 2019). It is observed that social media has become one of the most important communication tools among people in the U.S. Specifically, as user-generated that such social media platforms will become the future trend.. ‧. platforms like YouTube and Instagram thrive among young people, it is foreseeable. sit. y. Nat. Since user-generated platforms, encompassing blogs, wikis, picture-sharing, video-sharing, social-networking, and other websites essentially changed the world of. io. n. al. er. entertainment, communication, and information (Shao, 2009), and that social media. i Un. v. use is associated with both positive and negative emotions (Weinstein, 2018), the. Ch. engchi. rapid growth of image-sharing social networking sites (SNSs) such as Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest have attracted attention from researchers and practitioners (Kim, Seely, & Jung, 2017; Nedraa, Hadhrib, & Mezranic, 2019; Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2016; Punyanunt-Carter, De La Cruz, & Wrench, 2017; Yang, 2016). Given that there is no established standard definition for image-sharing SNSs, Mull and Lee (2014) distinguished its features from other SNSs: “Image-sharing SNSs share the same basic meaning, but instead of sharing textual information within their social network, users share images or pictorial information” (p. 192). To date, sharing pictorial information on SNSs not only becomes one of the most popular online activities (Duggan, 2013; Kim, Lee, Lee, Sung, & Choi, 2016; Kim, Sung, Lee, Choi, & Sung, 2016) but also plays an important role in general SNS use (Lee, Lee, Moon, & Sung, 2015). With more and more Internet users utilizing images to express and 1 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(9) present themselves other than texts, the growing phenomenon of SNS use reflects the implication that “pictures speak louder than words” (Lee et al., 2015, p. 552) and the fact that the importance of image-related SNSs for self-expression and impression management is increasing (Lee et al., 2015). Amongst these image-based SNSs, Instagram is significantly ahead of any other platforms, growing nearly 5 percent from quarter to quarter worldwide (Southern, 2018). As of 2020, Instagram has developed a global community of over 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million daily actives (Instagram, 2020), while teens and young Millennials (41 percent of Instagrammers are 24 years of age or younger) are its main users (Clement, 2019). The trend is even more evident after Instagram introduced Stories in 2016, a feature that allows users to share ephemeral photos and/or videos with the lifespan of 24 hours. The introduction of Stories has not. 政治大. only gradually changed and enhanced the visual nature of the platform, but also. 立. ensured the continued growth of Instagram.. ‧ 國. 學. Prior research suggests that image-based social media content has different consequences for viewers’ mood compared to text-based social media content. ‧. (Johnson & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2016). However, the extant research has focused less on image-based Instagram than on other social media platforms (e.g., Facebook). Nat. sit. y. (De Vries, Möller, Wieringa, Eigenraam, & Hamelink, 2018). Even though previous. er. io. studies have examined the motivational factors that drive Instagram usage (Lee et al., 2015; O’Donnell, 2018), and evaluated motivations, activities, use intentions, and. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. attitudes regarding Instagram (Lup, Trub, & Rosenthal, 2015; Sheldon & Bryant,. engchi. 2016), the antecedents and consequences of the usage of the relatively new feature on Instagram, Instagram Stories, is still understudied. As there has been concerns about the negative effects of Instagram use on mental health and well-being due to edited pictures (e.g., body images) that might set unrealistic expectations and generate feelings of insufficiency and inferiority (MacMillan, 2017), Instagram Stories seems to become the counterweight to the “perfect” aesthetics initially prevailing on Instagram (Lorenz, 2019). However, with the mobile-native vertical format of Stories, in which the content viewing matches users’ behaviors as most of them hold phones vertically, and the full-screen visual aspect of the feature, it is possible that users spend a lot of time and can be hooked on Instagram Stories as they become psychologically reliant on it, and can hardly resist 2 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(10) the urge to check Stories (Clark, 2019; Wagner, 2018). Therefore, given the popularity of Instagram among young adults and the centrality of Instagram is images rather than texts, it is important for researchers and practitioners to understand not only why they use Instagram in general, but also how they engage with the popular Instagram feature: Instagram Stories, the effects of such engagement on emotions (Duggan, 2015; Newcom, 2016), and how the utility of Instagram and resulting emotions can induce people to engage in excessive and addictive use (Kircaburun & Griffiths, 2018). In order to provide a holistic view on the growing phenomenon and shed light on what makes Instagram appealing to people, this study aims to advance the current understanding of how and why Millennial users consume, contribute to, and create content on Instagram Stories by building on the uses and gratifications theory (U&G), how their Instagram Stories use are related to emotional outcomes, and what. 政治大. influences their social media dependency. The findings of this study are expected to. 立. contribute to the U&G literature as well as users’ psychological dependency on social. ‧ 國. 學. media, which in turn could help shed light on this emerging social media use phenomenon and provide important implications to the field of media psychology.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 3 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(11) CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Image-sharing SNSs As the trend of using photos as a communication means increases, imagesharing SNSs have gained in popularity for their ability to increase people’s perceived closeness (Riviere, 2005) and provide additional cues that reduce miscommunication (Vaterlaus, Barnett, Roche, & Young, 2016). These cues involve nonverbal cues, hints to physical setting, and text overlays (e.g., basic text, emoticons, emojis) that give additional meanings to the photos. Among the image-based social networks, Instagram is the most popular platform with 1 billion monthly active users, followed. 政治大. by Snapchat with 314 million users, and Pinterest with 300 million users (Statista,. 立. 2019b).. ‧ 國. 學. As one of the first image-based SNSs, Pinterest is a pinboard-style platform filled with imagery of brands, clothing, food and recipes, places, and art (Phillips,. ‧. Miller, & McQuarrie, 2014). Pinterest users can upload, save, collect and manage any web image or personal digital image, known as “pin,” and then they can organize. Nat. sit. y. them into themes such as fashion, styles, home projects on pinboards (Mull & Lee,. er. io. 2014). With a different focus, Snapchat is a photo-sharing social network website that allows its users to interact with others through pictures and messages that are usually. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. available for a short time before they disappear (i.e., snaps). Snapchat’s 24-hour. engchi. lasting images or videos present the popular feature of “Stories,” where users can view their own “Story” and “Stories” from people they follow. With information being less permanent, users are more likely to share content and information that is more personal and representative of the “true” self (Punyanunt-Carter et al., 2017). In that sense, Stories becomes more and more popular and trendy in the social networking world that other platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook started to acquire the feature of “Stories.” As a result, Instagram Stories has surpassed all the other social networks featuring Stories (Richter, 2019). Specifically, Instagram Stories has developed to become a major platform for self-expression and casual sharing for more than 500 million daily active Stories users worldwide, up from 400 million global daily actives 4 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(12) in June 2018 (Instagram, 2018; Statista, 2019a), acquiring such wild popularity that has eclipsed Snapchat’s entire user base (Southern, 2018). Besides, Instagram’s ease of use and aesthetic trigger users’ posting more on Instagram than on Snapchat or other platforms (Herron, 2018).. 2.2. Instagram Stories Launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram is the most popular image-related SNS, allowing its users to take and share photos and videos as well as to modify final images and create the desired visual style through applying filters. As Instagram interconnects with an abundance of SNSs (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr), users are able to share the resulting images or videos not. 政治大. only on Instagram but also on other social media platforms. In addition, Instagram encourages its users to interact with one another through pressing the “Like” button,. 立. commenting, or adding hashtags (#) to their photos or videos, which not only helps. ‧ 國. 學. Instagrammers organize the images with tags and location information, but also enables others to view them more easily in spite of unfollowing them, and browse. ‧. other users’ content by tags and locations as well as viewing trending content. As for the privacy settings, Instagram enables its users to choose whether they want their. y. Nat. sit. personal information to be shared publicly or with pre-approved followers.. al. er. io. In August 2016, Instagram introduced Stories. Similar to Snapchat, Instagram. n. Stories allows users to edit and share videos and/or photos in real time with the following features (Read, 2018):. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 1. video styles involving normal, boomerang (looping back and forth), superzoom, rewind (reversing), hands-free, and stop-motion styles; 2. face filters, which can add small icons such as bunny ears to change the look; 3. colored background or “peek-a-boo” effects; 4. drawings and handwritings; 5. texts with different sizes, fonts (ranging from classic, modern, neon, typewriter and strong), and taggings; 6. stickers including location stickers, hashtag stickers, GIFs, polls (A/B poll, emoji slider poll), and questions stickers (i.e., AMA; ask me anything); 7. links; and 5 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(13) 8. reposting them with the lifespan of 24 hours in a slideshow format. The ephemeral nature of posts originally derived from Snapchat has been shown to “afford greater privacy for users” and also “seemed to influence the kinds of photos participants decided to share” (Bayer, Ellison, Schoenebeck, & Falk, 2016, p. 596). The time limit may in turn increase the affective response to given messages due to their perceived scarcity (Lynn, 1991) and users’ curiosity as they fear of missing out (FOMO) (Bug & Helwig, 2020). Similar to reactions on Facebook posts and comments, Stories enables its users to convey their feelings and respond to Stories of people they follow through reactions such as laughing, clapping hands, wow, love, sad, fire/lit, celebration, and perfect excepting words, photos and videos (Mendiratta, 2019). If users want to comment on Stories they view, they can only reply to the Stories through private one-to-one messaging via Instagram Direct where only the. 政治大. owners of the Stories can access. By following the privacy settings of users’ accounts,. 立. Stories can be visible only to certain followers and can even be hidden from those that. ‧ 國. 學. the users do not want to share Stories with (Instagram, 2016). Also, users can edit the Close Friends List, which allows them to share Instagram Stories with friends/. ‧. followers they have added to the list without notifying others, all of which may decrease users’ privacy concerns and increase their willingness and desire to using. sit. y. Nat. Instagram Stories.. er. io. Considering the original purpose of Instagram is enabling its users to share their life stories through images, research has demonstrated that Instagram plays an. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. important role in user’s self-presentation and impression management. For example,. engchi. compared to using Facebook, Instagrammers utilize Instagram to show personal identity rather than build and confirm relational identity; that is, Instagram is more consistent with one’s personal identity rather than their relational identity (Marcus, 2015). Additionally, previous research has suggested that social interaction is one of the main motivations for Instagram use (e.g., Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016; Pittman & Reich, 2016; Ridgway & Clayton, 2016), which is aligned with the findings of Whiting and Williams’ (2013) study that social interaction is the most important motivations for SNS users. Hence, despite self-expression as the primary motivation of using Instagram, another important motivation is social interaction (Kim et al., 2017), In line with that view, self-promotion is found to be a main feature exhibited on Instagram (Marcus, 2015). 6 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(14) However, previous studies on motivations for social media use and emotional consequences mainly focused on Facebook users (e.g., Lin & Utz, 2015; Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014; Wise, Alhabash, & Park, 2010), leaving the psychological mechanism underlying Instagram usage understudied (e.g., Lee et al., 2015; Lup et al., 2015; Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Extant research (e.g., Lee et al., 2015; Sheldon & Bryant, 2016) has found that Instagram uses are driven by needs for social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism, and peeking, which are associated with different psychological and social circumstances. Considering that little research has been conducted to evaluate users’ motivations and emotional outcomes relative to the use of Instagram Stories, the literature on uses and gratifications theory with a focus on its application to social media research is discussed next.. 政治大. 2.3. Uses and Gratifications and SNS Motivations. 立. Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G; Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974) is a. ‧ 國. 學. theoretical framework explaining how and why individuals actively seek out and use different media to fulfill their specific needs and wants. The fundamental concept of. ‧. U&G is that individuals obtain gratifications through media usage, and their motivations for engaging with different media are influenced by individual. sit. y. Nat. differences.. er. io. Emerging in the 1940’s, the U&G theory was introduced by psychologist. al. Herta Herzog (1944), who used the term gratifications to describe specific dimensions. n. v i n Cradio of satisfaction reported by daytime serial listeners. Following the trend, U hen i h c Berelson (1949) studied reader motives and g gratifications on the functions of. newspaper reading. This line of research was further developed by Katz (1959) as the U&G model to understand people’s motivations for utilizing certain types of mass media for fulfilling specific needs or desires. Subsequently, researchers became interested in why audiences engaged in various forms of media behaviors, such as listening to the radio and watching TV (McQuail, Blumler, & Brown, 1972; Mendelsohn, 1964; Wimmer & Dominick, 1994). Based on the tenets of U&G research, users are goal-directed in their media selection behavior and actively involved in media usage. The theory has become increasingly relevant in studies of audience behavior in relation to their media choice. While Katz et al. (1974) identified and categorized U&G into eight types: passing time, companionship, escape, 7 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(15) enjoyment, social interaction, relaxation, information, and excitement; McQuail (1983) suggested four general gratifications obtained from using mass media are entertainment, information, personal identity, and social interaction. Such typology has been widely used as the classification for media use in the literature (Mersey, Malthouse, & Calder, 2010; Shao, 2009). With the advent of the Internet and social media, researchers posit that U&G is applicable and can provide important insights into audience behavior for Internet and social media research (Ruggiero, 2000). Since then, U&G has been applied to study the use of various digital media related to communication technology, discovering a number of individual motivations with regard to different digital media platforms (Kaye & Johnson, 2002; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000), such as Internet (Charney & Greenberg, 2001), Facebook (Krause, North, & Heritage, 2014; Smock, Ellison,. 政治大. Lampe, & Wohn, 2011), and Twitter (Chen, 2011).. 立. More recently, with the focus of image-based SNS, Mull and Lee (2014). ‧ 國. 學. examined motives for Pinterest use and proposed a new set of measures for the U&G of Pinterest by employing a two-step mixed-method approach. First, a list of 153. ‧. descriptive items was collected from college students who used Pinterest. The researchers then extracted 54 terms and used them in the follow-up survey, which. Nat. sit. y. resulted in five types of gratification obtained from Pinterest: fashion, entertainment,. er. io. organization, creative projects, and virtual exploration. Fashion, as the most important driver of Pinterest use includes items such as style, outfits, clothing, and shopping.. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Organization needs suggest that users find Pinterest to be a space where they can. engchi. collect and organize images all in one location. This gratification highlights the type of information Pinterest users look for (e.g., crafts and do-it-yourself projects) and the unique purpose of using Pinterest (e.g., develop creative projects). With regard to virtual exploration, the results showed that Pinterest users wanted to use the site to explore and look for new things. Image-related SNSs, as the study suggested, share several motivational dimensions similar to SNSs yet have their own distinguishing factors. Therefore, their research not only provides retailers with the reasons how and why users use Pinterest, but it also contributes to the body of literature for U&G of image-related SNSs. Punyanunt-Carter et al.’s (2017) study aimed to probe the uses sought and gratifications obtained from Snapchat within the framework of gender. By surveying 8 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(16) 475 college students, the results showed that there were significant relationships between participant needs (entertainment and functional) with (a) communication apprehension (social media and Snapchat), (b) Snapchat addiction, intensity, and exhibitionism, and (c) optimism/pessimism and Snapchat satisfaction. While Snapchat users’ optimism/pessimism is associated with their needs for using the platform, Individuals with high communication apprehension can be benefited in many interpersonal settings regarding Snapchat, or media similar to Snapchat, and that Snapchat allows for positive interpersonal interaction. Besides, users reported using Snapchat for fun and practicality, which may lead to frequent usage of the medium and even addiction. All of their findings support the use of U&G and that user satisfaction will increase as needs are gratified. Lee et al. (2015) conducted a study to examine users’ motives for using. 政治大. Instagram and to explore the relationships between identified motivations and key. 立. attitudinal and behavioral intention variables. A survey with a total of 212 Instagram. ‧ 國. 學. users aged 20–39 years old in Korea was carried out to evaluate their motivation, primary activities, use intention, and attitude regarding Instagram. Findings of the. ‧. study showed that Instagram users have five primary social and psychological motives: social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism, and peeking. Also,. Nat. sit. y. the study revealed that motivations of archiving and peeking predict both attitudes. er. io. toward and intentions of Instagram use, suggesting the crucial role of these motives to form users’ positive attitudes toward Instagram and their future intention to regularly. al. n. use Instagram.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Similarly, Sheldon and Bryant (2016) investigated Instagram users’ motives for using Instagram and how participants’ age, life position indicators such as life satisfaction, interpersonal interaction, social activity, and the levels of narcissism influence their use of Instagram. The researchers argued that “a person’s social and psychological characteristics influence not only motives for communicating (their gratifications sought) but also gratifications obtained” (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016, p. 90). The survey results yielded four interpretable factors of Instagram use: surveillance/knowledge about others, documentation, coolness, and creativity. Specifically, documentation and coolness are the two unique motivations that most closely related to the functions and characteristics of Instagram. Besides, results also showed that there were multiple significant relationships among contextual age, 9 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(17) narcissism, motives and behavioral outcomes of Instagram use. Gender was found to be the strongest predictor of the amount of time spent on Instagram, followed by the surveillance motive, the creativity motive, and life satisfaction. The study hence made an important contribution to understanding which contextual age indicators can best predict how and why a person chooses to create an Instagram account, and the findings revealed that social activity emerged as one of the most important predictors of why people use Instagram, yet life satisfaction negatively predicted the use of Instagram to appear cool. Furthermore, it is also reported that Instagram is appealing to narcissists, which suggests that narcissism is one of the essential psychological traits observed in Instagram use. While there have been several U&G studies examining the motivational dimensions of image-sharing social media usage (Mull & Lee, 2014; Punyanunt-. 政治大. Carter et al., 2017), and Instagram usage (Lee et al., 2015; Sheldon & Bryant, 2016),. 立. there have not been empirical efforts devoted to examine users’ motivations to engage. ‧ 國. 學. in Instagram Stories. Given that each type of media has specific uses and gratifications, it is important for researchers to further understand distinctive user. ‧. motivations for using popular features within Instagram. Thus, the present research utilizes U&G as the theoretical approach to explore the motives behind the major. Nat. sit. y. users (i.e., Millennials) of Instagram Stories (Instagram, 2017), and put forth the. er. io. following research question.. RQ1: What are Millennials’ motivations for using Instagram Stories?. n. al. 2.4. Engagement. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 2.4.1. Conceptualization of Engagement In response to the dynamic and interactive nature of communication evolved on social media, researchers and practitioners alike (Calder, Malthouse, & Schaedel, 2009; Higgins & Scholer, 2009; Owyang, 2007; Vivek, Beatty, & Morgan, 2012) have tried to gain deeper insights into how and why the audience engage with social media, what engagement entails, and its effects on communication outcomes. Engagement, originated as a psychological concept, has also been broadly used in various fields including sociology, communication, organizational behavior, education, political science, and more (Hollebeek, 2011; Kuvykaitė & Tarutė, 2015). The concept is generally utilized in discussions regarding how individuals involve in 10 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(18) processes, co-creation, solution development and/or utilization, interactions and/or marketing-related forms of service exchange (Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric, & Ilic, 2011). It may be used to determine the degree of “connection,” “attachment,” “emotional involvement,” and/or “participation” (London, Downey, & Mace, 2007), yet the notion of engagement has been conceptualized variously and diversely in the literature. Broadly, Calder and Malthouse (2008) proposed that engagement represents a sense of involvement and connectedness with the media channel itself. Hollebeek (2011) further explained that engagement is strongly oriented to the context and can be influenced by users’ decisions associated with specific engagement objects, such as brands, products, or organizations, and regarded engagement as a multidimensional concept that comprises three dimensions: cognitive (thoughts), emotional (feelings),. 政治大. and behavioral (actions). Along that logic, cognitive engagement dimension is defined. 立. as a user’s degree of thought processing, concentration and interest in specific. ‧ 國. 學. interactions; emotional dimension, also labeled as “affection,” refers to a user’s state of emotional activity in certain interactions; while behavioral dimension, known as. ‧. “activation,” is a user’s levels of energy, endeavor and time spent on particular interactions (Hollebeek, 2011; Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014).. Nat. sit. y. Notionally, Brodie et al. (2011) defined engagement as a temporary state. er. io. occurring within broader relevant engagement processes developed overtime. While Lorena, Blanca, and Julio (2013) perceived engagement as a reflection of positive. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. reaction of using technologies, which is usually suggested by intrinsic interest,. engchi. curiosity, focused attention, concentration and absorption in a task, Patterson, Yu, and De Ruyter (2006) classified four main dimensions of engagement, including absorption, dedication, vigor, and interaction, and argued that users are enthusiastic and determined to devote energy, concentrate on and interact with a focal engagement object. Vivek (2009) identified five engagement components, comprising awareness, enthusiasm, interaction, activity, and extraordinary experience. Although diverse definitions of engagement emerged in the literature due to different contexts in which it occurs and being analyzed (Brodie et al., 2011), the extant research has used engagement to describe individuals’ interactive experience with focal objects such as products, services, media, activities, and so on. By interacting with each other through online communication and participation formats, 11 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(19) people are able to engage in dialogues through interactive media and content they themselves create (Creamer, 2006); thus, engagement of social media platforms at different intensities should be a key consideration. Considering the intensity of engagement depends on highly the contextual conditions, such as the type of media (e.g., social networks), situational variables (e.g., advertising), and involved subjects (e.g., brand communities) (Brodie et al., 2011), the thesis would put more focus on specific focal object of engagement— users’ interactions with content— in a social media context.. 2.4.2. Social Media Engagement In the era of digital and social media, users’ attention has been shifting from. 政治大. the mass media to social media, and they tend to spend a lot of time engaging with content on social media (Carton, 2011), which lead to marketers’ increasing. 立. investment in social media to connect with users.. ‧ 國. 學. Chaffey (2007) depicted that engagement increases when users have repeated interactions with brands that can strengthen their emotional, psychological or physical. ‧. investment. Owyang (2007) proposed that online engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement, intensity, contribution, ownership, which are considered. Nat. sit. y. “apparent interest.” Engagement thus encompasses attention, interaction, velocity,. er. io. authority, and relevant attributes. For example, people can read, comment, or subscribe on blogs as well as poking, sharing, or friending on Facebook. Likewise,. al. n. v i n Peterson (2007) defined online engagement as an estimate of the degree and depth of Ch U i e h n c g visitor interaction on the site, measured against a clearly defined set of goals. Due to the uniqueness of each organization’s version of engagement, a number of root metrics have been performed, including frequency, recency, length of visit, purchases, and lifetime value. Both Owyang (2007) and Peterson (2007) drew attention to different levels and intensity of online engagement, which is in line with the notion that engagement levels represent a specific state at different stages of relationships between organizations and users (Hollebeek, 2011). However, while previous researchers employed different approaches to determine the levels and types of engagement, there is general consensus in the literature that there are varying levels of engagement (Malthouse, Haenlein, Skiera, Wege, & Zhang, 2013). By elaborating engagement from a behavioral perspective, Van Doorn, Lemon, Mittal, Nass, Pick, 12 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(20) Pirner, and Verhoef (2010) further defined social media engagement behavior as “a customer’s behavioral manifestations that have a social media focus beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers” (p. 254), which is central to the conceptualization of engagement in the current study. Building on the U& G theory, Shao (2009) identified three types of individuals’ engagement with content: consumption (i.e., viewing, reading, watching), participation (i.e., commenting, sharing, liking, disliking), and production (i.e., creating, publishing), arguing that individuals use user-generated media in different ways for different purposes. The findings showed that individuals consume content to fulfill their needs for information, entertainment, and manage their mood, participate through interacting with the content as well as with other users to enhance social connections and the sense of being a part of virtual communities, and produce their. 政治大. own content for self-expression and self-actualization, both of which may ultimately. 立. achieve constructing their identity. Also, the researcher argued that, it is “easy to use”. ‧ 國. 學. and “let users control” (Shao, 2009, p. 7) as two usability aspects of user-generated media that allow individuals to consume, participate, and/or produce in a highly. ‧. efficient and controllable way, which makes individuals obtain greater gratification from using user-generated media.. Nat. sit. y. Morrison, Cheong, and McMillan (2013) presented a classification of. er. io. participants who create user-generated content, including posters, lurkers, and networkers, and explored their demographics, personality types, and key user. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. characteristics. While lurkers are people who simply read the content posted by others. engchi. and posters are those who post online content at user-generated media sites, networkers are those who engage in producing and consuming user-generated content on SNSs. The researchers revealed that lurkers are a lot more prevalent than posters in the online environment. Demographically, lurkers, posters, and networkers do not differ in terms of ethnicity, education, or household, yet age, gender, and employment status were proven to be factors related to behaviors in the context of user-generated content. In particular, Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit (2011) proposed the typology of consumers’ online brand-related activities (COBRAs) and categorized COBRAs into three continuous levels of gradual involvement with social media content: consuming (i.e., participating without actively contributing or creating content), contributing (i.e., 13 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(21) user-to-content and user-to-user interactions) and creating (i.e., actively producing and publishing the content that others consume and contribute to). To gain insights into why users engage in COBRAs, the researchers followed the U&G approach and discovered six motivations behind users’ engagement in SNS communities: information, entertainment, remuneration, personal identity and integration, social interaction, and empowerment. Specifically, they found that consuming content is driven by the need for information and remuneration, creating content is linked to empowerment motivation, and both contributing to communities and creating content are associated with social interaction and self-presentation, whereas the need for entertainment is related to all types of engagement in COBRAs. Following Muntinga et al.’s (2011) framework of social media use motivations as antecedents of engagement, De Veirman, Cauberghe, Hudders, and De Pelsmacker. 政治大. (2017) examined the characteristics and marketing potential of SNS brand. 立. communities, how SNS users interact with the communities, and what motivates them. ‧ 國. 學. to engage in different types of interaction. As the development of the Internet facilitates the creation of virtual communities, such as pages on Facebook or accounts. ‧. on Twitter or Instagram, individuals are allowed to join a page and help spread information by simply clicking “Like,” “Share,” “Retweet,” or “Comment” on posts. Nat. sit. y. on SNSs. In most cases, they engage in SNSs by lurking (i.e., non-interactive. er. io. behavior that they passively, not publicly view pages and read posts from others as they browse). In some cases, they engage in SNSs by posting (i.e., interactive. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. behavior that they publicly like and share posts, add content themselves, and/or react. engchi. to comments of others). Via surveying on Facebook, the researchers found that both lurking and posting are driven by the need for social interaction. While lurking is motivated by the need for entertainment, posting is reported to be strongly related to the empowerment motivation, which may indicate that users actively engage in online activities to have an impact on others. Given the contextual differences, the motives for engaging in SNS activities should be further explored. Based on the reviewed literature, social media use motivations are determinants of engagement. In particular, viewing, participating and uploading content are observed to be the main activities that individuals engage on social media (Morrison et al., 2013; Muntinga et al., 2011; Shao, 2009; Tsai & Men, 2013). In view of the Instagram Stories context, this study conceptualizes engagement by integrating 14 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(22) the typology of engagement proposed by Muntinga et al. (2011), exploring the relationships between motivations of Instagram Stories usage and types of engagement: consuming (i.e., viewing, browsing, checking out, and swiping up Instagram Stories), contributing (i.e., participating in activities, replying to Instagram Stories), and creating (i.e., posting and uploading Instagram Stories). Considering that there is not much literature on users’ engagement with Instagram Stories, the following research question asks how different motivations contribute to Millennials’ engagement levels with Instagram Stories, aiming to elucidate the nature of their content consuming, contributing, and creating behaviors. RQ2: How are Millennials’ motivations for using Instagram Stories related to their engagement in terms of content consumption, contribution, and creation?. 立. 政治大. 2.5. Psychological Consequences of Social Media Engagement. ‧ 國. 學. 2.5.1. Emotional Outcomes of Social Media Use. As the use of social media becomes pervasive, concerns about the social. ‧. media impact on users’ psychological well-being have emerged (O’Keeffe & ClarkePearson, 2011; Pantic, 2014). Particularly, the role of emotions is an important subject. y. Nat. sit. of study in audience research and an essential component in understanding media. er. io. users’ communications and responses (Richins, 1997). Extant research has shown that. al. v i n Ch results of prior studies on the psychological of social media usage are quite U i e n geffects h c n. social media use may lead to different emotional outcomes (Weinstein, 2018), and the mixed. While some researchers found that social media use is associated with. increased depressive symptoms (Pantic, Damjanovic, Todorovic, Topalovic, BojovicJovic, Ristic, & Pantic, 2012), others showed that social media use is related to decreased depressive symptoms (Thorsteinsson, & Davey, 2014) or is not related to depressive symptoms (Datu, Valdez, & Datu, 2012). One explanation for such contradicting findings is that the effects of social media use on emotions depend on specific social media activities individuals engage in (Frison & Eggermont, 2016). Therefore, it is important to take individuals’ social media engagement and the effects of specific social media activities into consideration when examining the emotional consequences of social media use.. 15 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(23) Along that logic, Krasnova, Wenninger, Widjaja, and Buxmann (2013) investigated the scale, scope, and nature of envy-inducing incidents triggered by Facebook use as well as the mediating role of envy feelings in Facebook passive use on users’ life satisfaction. The researchers found that positive emotions (e.g., feelings of joy/fun, satisfaction, excitement, and relaxation) were reported more by participants than negative ones (e.g., feelings of boredom, anger, frustration, guiltiness, sadness, loneliness, and envy) when asked to report their overall feelings after their most recent Facebook usage. The results revealed that intensity of passive following and the consumption of other people’s information (e.g., vacation photos) can evoke invidious feelings of envy on SNSs and in turn reduce users’ life satisfaction. Also, the researchers pointed out that it should be worrisome for SNS providers if too many negative feelings were triggered by envy-inducing posts (e.g.,. 政治大. vacation pictures), users might quit using Facebook, which may endanger the. 立. sustainability of the social media platform in the long term. Nevertheless, it is unclear. ‧ 國. 學. whether different feelings are triggered by different social media consumption and whether such social media usage can elicit several feelings.. ‧. Wise et al. (2010) examined how users spent time on Facebook and how different Facebook uses influenced their physiological responses associated with. Nat. sit. y. emotions by recording participants’ physiological signals as they navigated Facebook.. er. io. Specifically, they conceptualized social browsing as passive social informationseeking and social searching as extractive social information-seeking. The findings. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. revealed that participants spent more time on social searching than on social browsing,. engchi. and that they showed greater pleasantness during social searching than social browsing. However, the researchers distinguished only between directed (e.g., a certain friend’s profile) and arbitrary (e.g., news feed) online social information seeking without linking those activities to other Facebook-unrelated Internet activities such as social gaming (e.g., Mafia Wars) or social commerce (e.g., Facebook Marketplace). Sagioglou and Greitemeyer (2014) investigated the relation between Facebook activities and users’ emotional states through three studies. They examined the correlation between time spent on Facebook and users’ current emotional states, the effect of Facebook activity on users’ current mood through activity meaningfulness, and users’ anticipated feelings after Facebook use. The researchers found that the 16 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(24) more time individuals spent on browsing Facebook, the more negative their mood was immediately afterwards, which was mediated by the feelings of wasting time and having done nothing meaningful. Also, the results suggested that emotional effects of Facebook activities were more negative than expected, which is in contrast to Krasnova et al.’s (2013) findings that Facebook users indicated more positive emotions than negative ones when asked to estimate how they typically felt after using Facebook. However, which mechanisms were at work in creating such affective forecasting error remains unclear. To have a comprehensive understanding of whether reading positive posts on Facebook would result in more positive emotions (e.g., happiness) or more negative emotions (e.g., envy, boredom), Lin and Utz (2015) focused on the momentary feelings of browsing Facebook on an individual message level, examining whether the. 政治大. tie strength (i.e., the relationship closeness) between the posters and readers can. 立. predict those emotional outcomes. A correlational study with a sample of 207. ‧ 國. 學. Americans and an experimental study with a sample of 194 Germans were conducted. The results showed that positive emotions were more prevailing than negative. ‧. emotions while viewing posts on Facebook, and that tie strength moderated the feelings of happiness and benign envy after reading Facebook posts. That is, the. Nat. sit. y. closer the relationship, the happier one feels after reading positive posts and the. er. io. sadder one feels after reading negative posts. For instance, if positive posts were posted by strong ties, users were more likely to be happy for them (i.e., family or. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. friends) as well as experiencing only benign envy that generally motivates individuals’. engchi. self-improvement (Lin & Utz, 2015). Thus, their study not only filled the research gap on the role of tie strength in predicting the emotional outcomes of browsing Facebook posts, but also was the first to differentiate malicious and benign envy in the context of Facebook use. Considering the prevalence of social media and its association with users’ psychological outcomes, Pittman and Reich (2016) examined the relationships among happiness, loneliness, satisfaction with life, and different types of social media platforms, including text-based (e.g., Twitter and Yik Yak), image-based (e.g., Instagram and Snapchat), and mixed (e.g., Facebook) social media platforms by using a mixed-method survey. In contrast to the previously mentioned literature (e.g., Johnson & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2016), the researchers found that text-based social 17 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(25) media use had no relationship with psychological well-being owing to its relative lack of intimacy. Nevertheless, image-based social media use is related to an increase in happiness and satisfaction with life and a decrease in loneliness due to images’ ability to stimulate social presence and the feelings of connectedness, which in turn indicates that the more users use image-based social media platforms, the happier they are likely to be, the more satisfied they are with their life, and the less lonely they are likely to feel. While Pittman and Reich’s (2016) findings contribute to the psychology and communication literature by advancing the understanding of social media consumption and psychological well-being, it is ambiguous what potential effects of individual differences on social media use and the causal role of image-based social media use plays in psychological well-being. Bayer et al. (2016) probed the relationship between users’ social and. 政治大. emotional experiences on Snapchat by conducting a multi-method investigation using. 立. both quantitative and qualitative approaches. They found that Snapchat interactions—. ‧ 國. 學. general interactions and especially interactions with close ties— are associated with more positive mood but less social support than other social media platforms such as. ‧. Facebook. Also, sharing mundane and spontaneous experiences with close others facilitates positive affect. While interactions were defined broadly as “any form of. Nat. sit. y. communication between you and another person” (Bayer et al., 2016, p. 962) in the. er. io. study, it is unknown how different and specific types of user behaviors are associated with users’ emotional well-being.. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Being the first study to examine Instagram use and psychological well-being,. engchi. Lup et al. (2015) surveyed 117 young adults aged 18–29 and found that frequent Instagram use is negatively associated with psychological well-being for those who follow more strangers, while a positive association with psychological well-being for those who follow fewer strangers emerged. In line with Krasnova et al.’s (2013) findings that passively browsing others’ profiles displaying photos of vacations or social events to which one is not invited often triggers resentment, envy, and loneliness, Lup et al. (2015) pointed out that passive SNS use (e.g., viewing others’ profiles without posting one’s own new materials) seems to be particularly detrimental. De Vries et al. (2018) investigated the emotional consequences of browsing strangers’ positive posts on Instagram. By conducting a lab experiment, the study 18 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(26) examined both social comparison and emotional contagion perspectives along with individual differences regarding their varying tendencies to compare themselves to others. The findings showed that, from a social comparison perspective, strangers’ positive social media posts negatively affect emotions of viewers with high levels of social comparison orientation; from an emotional contagion perspective, strangers’ positive posts positively affect emotions of viewers with low levels of social comparison orientation. Besides, the findings also indicated that viewing strangers’ positive posts only impact positive affect but not negative affect, suggesting that browsing strangers’ positive posts can make social media users experience more positive affect but only if they do not compare themselves to others as this leads to less positive affect. De Vries et al.’s (2018) study provided important insights into how social media posts are processed in different ways and among different. 政治大. individuals and results in different affective consequences.. 立. Yang (2016) examined the relationships between loneliness and Instagram. ‧ 國. 學. activities with the moderation of social comparison orientation. The findings revealed that the interactive activity (i.e., interaction) and the passive activity (i.e.,. ‧. browsing) on Instagram are both associated with lower levels of loneliness, whereas the active but non-interactive activity (i.e., broadcasting) on Instagram is related to. Nat. sit. y. higher levels of loneliness. However, contradicting to the previous research that. er. io. passive social media use is negatively related to psychological well-being (e.g., Krasnova et al., 2013; Lup et al., 2015), it is noteworthy that Instagram browsing. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. associated with less solitude may due to its capability that users can learn about others,. engchi. and this may in turn facilitate actual social interaction.. Differently, Weinstein (2018) examined the positive and negative influences of daily interactions with social media use on adolescents’ affective well-being. The findings revealed that participants reported their affective experiences of portray social media use as positive. Both positive and negative emotions were found to be related to their social media experiences of expression, relational interactions, exploration, and browsing. Besides, teens indicated that social media platforms reflected and amplified positive and challenging aspects of their lives. Individual differences (e.g., appearance) and social-contextual factors (e.g., family circumstances) were intertwined with affect experiences of social media use. In this way, the findings. 19 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(27) concluded a “both/and model” (Weinstein, 2018, p. 3620) that teens experienced different aggregation of both positive and negative influences of social media. Based on the reviewed articles, passive consumption of social information has rather negative outcomes for some of the users (Wise et al., 2010; Krasnova et al., 2013; Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014). However, some prior research showed that passive content consumption may also trigger positive emotions, and even has additional salutary effects on Millennials’ psychological and emotional well-being (Weinstein, 2018; Bolton, Parasuraman, Hoefnagels, Migchels, Kabadayi, Gruber, Loureiro, & Solnet, 2013). In light of that, the current study integrates different engagement levels, ranging from consumption to participation to creation, and examines how the levels of engagement is associated with users’ emotions, aiming to bridge the gap that extant research has focused more on Facebook than other social. 政治大. media platforms and emerging new features. To understand young adults’ total. 立. experience with Instagram Stories, the study attends to both positive and negative. ‧ 國. 學. emotions related to their social media engagement.. RQ3: What are the emotions Millennials experience when using Instagram. ‧. Stories?. Nat. sit. y. 2.5.2. Social Media Dependency. er. io. As individuals spend increasingly more time on usage of communication technologies and social media than before, researchers have examined individuals’. al. n. v i n psychological state of dependency Casha consequence ofUmedia usage (Turel, Serenko, i e & Giles, 2011; Wang, Lee, & Hua, 2015).n g c h Introduced by Ball-Rokeach and Defleur (1976), dependency is described as a relationship in which the attainment of one party’s needs and goals is reliant on another party’s resources. As the main focus of the theory is the relationship between media and audiences, media dependency is thus defined as a “relation between the fulfillment of individuals’ goals and the extent the goals rely on the information resources of the media which can create, gather, process, and disseminate information” (Ball-Rokeach, 1985). Over the years, the concept of media dependency has been used to investigate dependency relationships through mass communication channels such as television (Grant, Guthrie, & Ball-Rokeach, 1991), radio (Loges, 1994), and newspapers (Loges & Ball-Rokeach, 1993). Recently, research focus on media 20 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(28) dependency has been shifted to the Internet and social media (Kim & Jung, 2017; Patwardhan & Yang, 2003; Wang et al., 2015). A plenty of terms have been proposed to describe psychological dependency on media, including SNS dependency (Kim & Jung, 2017), media dependency (Thadani & Cheung, 2011a), technology dependence (Fan, Liu, Wang, & Wang, 2017), Internet addiction (Kuss, Griffiths, Karila, & Billieux, 2014; Young, 1998), media addiction (LaRose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003), and technology addiction (Charlton, 2002; Turel et al., 2011). Based on Griffiths’ (1999) definition of technological dependency, it is a form of non-substance behavioral addiction involving excessive interaction with information technologies (i.e., both the technology and the content) under conditions of psychological dependency. Namely, dependency represents an irrational and compulsive circumstance. Likewise, considering it is possible for an individual to. 政治大. have different degrees of deficient self-regulation, this research defines social media. 立. dependency as a “deficient in self-regulation with which an individual is unable to. ‧ 國. 學. effectively regulate one’s dependency on the SNSs” (Thadani & Cheung, 2011b, p. 3), and refers to such dependency as a form of technology addiction. Some studies. ‧. (Thadani & Cheung, 2011a; Wang et al., 2015; Young, 1998) share the idea that the terms “dependency” and “addiction” are interchangeable to some extent, suggesting. Nat. sit. y. that dependency is a phenomenological process reflected by behavioral addiction.. er. io. Dependency, in that sense, represents a psychological state, whereas addiction encapsulates the related behavior (Thadani & Cheung, 2011b). However, unlike some. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. studies (Griffiths, 1990; Turel et al., 2011) conceptualized such types of addictive. engchi. dependency as gambling or auction, this research believes that social media dependency is relatively harmless, acceptable, and similar to the concept of soft addiction in that people spend a majority of time and energy engaging in SNS activities, seeking to avoid anxiety, satisfy surface desires/urges, and feel a sense of fulfillment from their habitual social media use (Wright, 2006). Following Wright’s (2006) notion, it is important to examine the relationship between social media usage and users’ psychological dependency.. 2.5.3. Engagement and Social Media Dependency. 21 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(29) Researchers have pointed out that there may exist a developmental process of high engagement precedes addictive technological activities (Charlton, 2002). That is, high levels of engagement with social media can lead to addictive social media usage. Caplan (2010) provided an update of the cognitive-behavioral model of the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 and integrated related ideas and results from recent studies. By using a two-step approach to develop and validate the theory, the results showed that while preference for online social interaction and Internet use for mood regulation predict deficient self-regulation of compulsive Internet use and cognitive preoccupation with the Internet, deficiency in self-regulation is a significant factor affecting negative outcomes related to Internet use. In addition, along with preference for online social interaction, mood regulation and deficient self-regulation are central aspects of generalized problematic Internet use. Therefore, individuals’. 政治大. preference for online social interaction, Internet use for mood regulation, and. 立. deficient self-regulation paly significant roles in predicting problematic Internet use.. ‧ 國. 學. Along with Caplan’s (2010) view on technology dependency as a form of selfregulatory disorder, Thadani and Cheung (2011b) examined the concept of technology. ‧. dependency in the SNS context such as Facebook, proposing that technology dependency is crucially related to habit formation, and that online social network. Nat. sit. y. dependency is not only a significant determinant of habit but also an enhancer in SNS. er. io. users’ perceptions that indirectly influences habit. The scholars defined online social network dependency as a moderator that individuals are consciously preoccupied with. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. thoughts about SNSs, and unable to get their mind off it. They also proposed online. engchi. social network dependency as having a direct effect that an individual is unable to consciously control their behaviors. Through utilizing a web-based field survey with a convenience sample of Facebook users, the results revealed that frequency of prior behavior, comprehensiveness of usage and satisfaction were found to be major factors influencing the habit formation in the SNS context; specifically, frequency of prior behavior was found to be the least significant exogenous predictor of habit. Besides, it was found that via positive framing, addicts/dependents overestimate the benefit they could obtain from SNSs, which results in such bias that SNSs could best satisfy their needs for interpersonal connection, and in turn make them have higher tendency to form habit. In this sense, Thadani and Cheung (2011b) not only shed light on how technology dependency relates to the habit formation in SNS context and how habit 22 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(30) can be formed in SNSs, but also explicates the application of the psychological insights into the conceptualization of technology dependency. Fan et al. (2017) investigated the effects of interactivity (i.e., control, communication, and responsiveness) on engagement, user satisfaction, and technology dependence to better understand users’ technology utilization behavior. The researchers conceptualized technology dependence as the proportion of time users choose to use the information technologies, and identified technology dependence as the intensity of information technologies usage by adopting the notion of proactive stickiness proposed by Wu, Wang, and Tsai (2010). The findings showed that both engagement and user satisfaction have effects on technology dependence. Specifically, engagement, influenced by interactivity, has a stronger effect on technology dependence, and user satisfaction is affected by engagement and. 政治大. responsiveness of the technology. This indicates that high interactive features and. 立. designs of the technology may ensure the higher quality and better utilization of the. ‧ 國. 學. technology, and that the more users engage with the technology, the more likely they are to rely on the technology led by the immersed media environment. In the sense,. ‧. the proposed technology dependence model can help technology developers to understand not only what features need to be included in the technology design, but. Nat. sit. y. also how to attract users to rely more on and actively use the technology. Following. er. io. this logic, it is plausible that users will become dependent on communication technology if they experience a high level of engagement. Thus, engagement with. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. social media is expected to have a direct impact on social media dependency.. engchi. 2.5.4. The Mediating Role of Emotions In addition, researchers have suggested that emotions are associated with addictive Internet use (Campbell, Cumming, & Hughes, 2006). While pleasant feelings (e.g., excitement, euphoria, or exhilaration) typically amplify addictive patterns of Internet use (Young, 1999), negative mood (e.g., depression) is also a necessary cause of Internet dependency, for users who turn to the Internet to avoid further deteriorating mood (Davis, 2001). As addicted people find more pleasant feelings when online compared to their feelings when offline, they tend to engage more intensely on the Internet; the longer they go without the Internet, the more intense such unpleasant feelings they have. Besides, such attachment or sensation of 23 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(31) addicts towards the Internet may damage one’s life to some extent, and this can in turn make addicts psychologically long for the euphoria related to the Internet (Young, 1999). Donnelly and Kuss (2016) investigated the relationships between SNS usage, SNS addiction and depression across the four SNS platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook, by employing a cross-sectional online study. The findings showed that, based on the U&G theory, Instagram use is related to SNS addiction, and that both Instagram use and SNS addiction are predictors of depression. Instagram use can lead to excessive use because users obtain gratification from enjoying the visual functions of the platform as well as exploring new identities by presenting such online self-image that they wish to promote. Besides, users may have the feelings of pride, euphoria, and self-confidence when receiving likes or comments. 政治大. on their profiles, yet they may have the feelings of despondency and depression if not.. 立. Thus, the more users participate in Instagram, the more likely they are to experience. ‧ 國. 學. SNS addiction due to gratification-seeking. However, it is noteworthy that such usage may sequentially increase the feelings of depression. As users tend to create more. ‧. positive self-images on Instagram, exposures to those images may induce such comparisons that users’ may not find their real lives as privileged as others’, which in. Nat. sit. y. turn results in dissatisfaction. While the results also indicated there is a relationship. er. io. between SNS addiction and depression, there is no such relationship between Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat use and SNS addiction or depression. The reason. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. may be that young people migrate from Facebook to other newer SNSs, such as. engchi. Instagram, and that Twitter is primarily a text-based SNS which users may not receive that much gratification or methodological differences (Donnelly & Kuss, 2016). By integrating the U&G theory and Media System Dependency theory, Sun, Rubin, and Haridakis (2008) investigated the mediating role of cognitive involvement (i.e., attention and recognition) and affective involvement (i.e., positive and negative affect) in the relationship between demographics, motivations for Internet use and Internet dependency. Through surveying 471 participants, the results showed that young people were more likely to develop Internet dependency than older people, as most of young adults are technologically savvy. While Internet motivations (i.e., substitution, information, social interaction, and control) and involvement (i.e., cognitive involvement, positive affect, and negative affect) were significant predictors 24 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.

(32) of Internet dependency than demographics, motivation was found to be a stronger precursor of Internet dependency than demographics, and cognitive and affective involvement. Also, as an instrumental Internet orientation (e.g., social interaction and control motivations) was found to be related to cognitive involvement, a ritualized orientation (e.g., substitution motivation) was found to be related more to affective involvement. Longstreet and Brooks (2017) investigated how a generalized positive emotional state (i.e., happiness) and a generalized negative emotional state (i.e., stress) affect Internet and social media addiction through life satisfaction by conducting online surveys among 251 participants aged from 18 to 44. The results showed that different emotional states impact life satisfaction differently, and life satisfaction has a significant influence on both types of addictions. While happiness has a positive effect. 政治大. on life satisfaction, stress has a negative influence on life satisfaction. In other words,. 立. higher happiness levels are related to greater life satisfaction, yet high stress levels. ‧ 國. 學. may lead to a decrease in life satisfaction. The findings also suggested that decreases in life satisfaction are related to increased levels of Internet and social media. ‧. addiction, because users may turn to the Internet or social media for happiness. In this way, as users experience more pleasant feelings in life, their life satisfaction will. Nat. sit. y. increase and the corresponding levels of Internet and social media addiction will. er. io. decrease. Contrarily, as users have more stress in life, their life satisfaction will decrease, which may then increase their degrees of Internet and social media. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. addiction. Therefore, increased positive emotions (i.e., happiness) and decreased. engchi. negative emotions (i.e., stress) may be associated with decreased levels of Internet and social media addiction through life satisfaction, which indicates that seeking increased life satisfaction in an alternative way can reduce these addictions (Longstreet & Brooks, 2017). Altuwairiqi, Kostoulas, Powell, and Ali (2019) examined the relationship between the usage experience of people with a problematic attachment to social media and their associated emotions by conducting a multistage qualitative method: interviews and diary study. The researchers found that usage experience of problematic attachment to social media is related to both negative (i.e., sadness, anger, and fear) and positive emotions (i.e., love, joy, and surprise). On one hand, receiving notification, hasty and unconsciously prolonged usage, unconscious disregard, 25 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000348.