| Facebook use and depressive symptomatology: Investigating the role of neuroticism and extraversion in youth | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-5 | |
| Teague E. Simoncic; Kate R. Kuhlman; Ivan Vargas; Sean Houchins; Nestor L. Lopez-Duran | |||
| The popularity of social networking sites, such as Facebook, has increased
rapidly over the past decade, especially among youth. Consequently, the impact
of Facebook use on mental health problems (e.g., depressive symptomatology) has
become a recent area of concern. Yet, evidence for such a link has been mixed
and factors that contribute to heterogeneity of findings have not been
identified. In this study, we examined whether the association between Facebook
use and depressive symptoms is moderated by individual factors (i.e.,
personality and sex). To this end, we measured Facebook use, depressive
symptoms, and personality domains (i.e., extroversion and neuroticism) among
237 young adults. No direct association was found between Facebook use and
depressive symptoms. However, for females with high neuroticism, more frequent
Facebook use was associated with lower depressive symptoms. Our findings
suggest a complex relationship between Facebook use and depressive
symptomatology that appears to vary by sex and personality. Facebook use may be
protective against depressive symptoms for female users with high levels of
neuroticism, while Facebook use may be unrelated to depressive symptoms among
males. Keywords: Depression; Facebook; Extraversion; Neuroticism; Sex | |||
| Understanding families' motivations for sustainable behaviors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 6-15 | |
| Mary L. Barreto; Agnieszka Szóstek; Evangelos Karapanos; Nuno J. Nunes; Lucas Pereira; Filipe Quintal | |||
| While interest in eco-feedback technologies has peaked over the last decade,
research increasingly highlights that simply providing information to
individuals regarding their consumption behaviors does not guarantee behavior
change. This has lead to an increasing body of work that attempts to
characterize individuals' latent motivations that drive sustainable behaviors.
With this paper we aim at expanding this body of work by analyzing such
motivations in the context of families. We report findings from interviews with
15 families who used an eco-feedback interface over a period of 2 years. Our
study reveals that motivations for sustainable behavior were not only rooted in
individuals' environmental concerns and need for expense management but they
also regarded: (i) individuals' and families' need for a sense of control and
security, (ii) parents' self-perceived responsibility of their role as parents
and (iii) the perception of individual as well as family identity. We argue
that in order for eco-feedback technologies to attain long-lasting behavioral
changes in the domestic environment they need to address basic family needs
that go beyond individual ideals of pro-environmental behavior. Keywords: Sustainability; Motivations; Behavior change; Family dynamics; Energy consumption; Eco-feedback | |||
| Presentation on Facebook and risk of cyberbullying victimisation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 16-22 | |
| Rebecca Dredge; John Gleeson; Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia | |||
| Facebook is an environment in which adolescents can experiment with
self-presentation. Unfortunately, Facebook can also be an environment in which
cyberbullying occurs. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether
specific self-presentation behaviours in Facebook were associated with
cyberbullying victimisation for adolescents. The contents of 147 adolescent
(15-24 years) Facebook profile pages were recorded and used to predict
cyberbullying victimisation. Coded contents included the presence or absence of
Facebook profile features (e.g., relationship status) and the specific content
of certain features (e.g., type and valence of wall posts). Participants
completed measures of cyberbullying victimisation and traditional bullying
victimisation and perpetration. More than three out of four participants
reported experiencing at least one victimisation experience on Facebook in the
preceding 6 months. A series of Facebook features and experiences of
traditional bullying victimisation/perpetration were found to be associated
with an increased risk of cyberbullying victimisation. Number of Facebook
friends and traditional bullying victimisation were also significant predictors
of cyberbullying victimisation. These results support the hypothesis that
self-presentation on Facebook can increase the likelihood of eliciting negative
attention from potential perpetrators. This has important implications for the
development of cyberbullying prevention and education programs that teach
adolescents about measures they may take to decrease their risk for
cyberbullying victimisation within social networking sites like Facebook. Keywords: Cyberbullying; Victimisation; Adolescents; Risk; Prevention; Facebook | |||
| Technology addiction's contribution to mental wellbeing: The positive effect of online social capital | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 23-30 | |
| Kate Magsamen-Conrad; China Billotte-Verhoff; Kathryn Greene | |||
| This research examines the effect of online social capital and Internet use
on the normally negative effects of technology addiction, especially for
individuals prone to self-concealment. Self-concealment is a personality trait
that describes individuals who are more likely to withhold personal and private
information, inhibiting catharsis and wellbeing. Addiction, in any context, is
also typically associated with negative outcomes. However, we investigate the
hypothesis that communication technology addiction may positively affect
wellbeing for self-concealing individuals when online interaction is positive,
builds relationships, or fosters a sense of community. Within these parameters,
increased communication through mediated channels (and even addiction) may
reverse the otherwise negative effects of self-concealment on wellbeing.
Overall, the proposed model offers qualified support for the continued analysis
of mediated communication as a potential source for improving the wellbeing for
particular individuals. This study is important because we know that healthy
communication in relationships, including disclosure, is important to
wellbeing. This study recognizes that not all people are comfortable
communicating in face-to-face settings. Our findings offer evidence that the
presence of computers in human behaviors (e.g., mediated channels of
communication and NCTs) enables some individuals to communicate and foster
beneficial interpersonal relationships, and improve their wellbeing. Keywords: Technology addiction; Wellbeing; Online social capital; Self-concealment | |||
| Online and hybrid university-level courses with the utilization of Second Life: Investigating the factors that predict student choice in Second Life supported online and hybrid university-level courses | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 31-43 | |
| Nikolaos Pellas; Ioannis Kazanidis | |||
| The radical restructure of hybrid and online learning course delivery
methods at university-level held in Second Life has been widely and positively
acknowledged from a large academic literature body. However, it is still absent
the clarification of students' socio-cognitive factors that predict their
choice to attend at least in one of these course delivery methods. The main
purpose of this study is to examine the relation between several personal
factors and students' choice to participate in these contemporary methods. A
targeted sample of 325 voluntary students (170 who participated in hybrid
sessions and 155 who participated in online sessions) completed a survey to
assess socio-cognitive factors (self-efficacy, metacognitive self-regulation
and task value), achievement-related emotions (pride, anger, relief and shame)
in academic settings (before and after finishing various learning activities)
and satisfaction levels of each method with also final grades from their
examination processes to be included. Logistic regression confirmed higher
levels of students' self-efficacy and satisfaction in learning outcomes for
those who took part in (fully) online rather than those who enrolled in hybrid
courses. The study results revealed that students would prefer to take further
courses in the online course delivery method. Conclusive remarks may provide
meaningful information to the educational community in order to understand
better how the socio-cognitive constructs of motivation are related to the
students' participation in future-driven educational activities held in Second
Life by using the online or hybrid course delivery methods. Keywords: Second Life; Socio-cognitive conceptual model; Online course delivery method; Blended course delivery method | |||
| E-readiness of website acceptance and implementation in SMEs | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 44-55 | |
| Wei-Hsi Hung; Li-Min Chang; Chieh-Pin Lin; Chun-Hao Hsiao | |||
| This study aims to make a deep exploration into e-readiness from the
viewpoints of technology, management, organization, and environment in order to
understand how these dimensions affect the acceptance intention and degree of
implementation of a corporate website. A mail survey was conducted. A total of
753 questionnaires were distributed and collected from SMEs' senior executives,
generating 163 usable replies with a total response rate of 21.65%. The
structural equation modeling (SEM) technique and partial least squares (PLS)
software were used to conduct a path analysis for related variables in the
research model. Results of the data analysis show that (1) the variables that
have a significant positive effect on the intention to accept a corporate
website in SMEs are an awareness of corporate website, enterprise resources,
technological resources, government e-readiness, market force e-readiness, and
supporting industries e-readiness and (2) the variables that have a significant
effect on the degree of corporate website implementation in SMEs are an
awareness of corporate website, senior executive commitment, corporate website
governance, human resources, technological resources, government e-readiness,
and market force e-readiness. Through the empirical results, this study
provides contributions for SME managers and researchers. Keywords: Small- and medium-sized enterprises; Corporate website; E-readiness; Acceptance of information technology | |||
| Evaluating mobile apps for breathing training: The effectiveness of visualization | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 56-63 | |
| Luca Chittaro; Riccardo Sioni | |||
| Deep and slow breathing exercises can be an effective adjunct in the
treatment of stress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and
depression. Breathing techniques are traditionally learned in courses with
trainers and/or with materials such as audio CDs for home practice. Recently,
mobile apps have been proposed as novel breathing training tools, but to the
best of our knowledge no research has focused on their evaluation so far. In
this paper, we study three different designs for breathing training apps. The
first employs audio instructions as in traditional training based on audio CDs,
while the other two include visualizations of the breathing process,
representative of those employed in current breathing training apps. We carry
out a thorough analysis, focusing on users' physiological parameters as well as
subjective perception. One visualization produces better results both
objectively (measured deepness of breath) and subjectively (users' preferences
and perceived effectiveness) than the more traditional audio-only design. This
indicates that a visualization can contribute to the effectiveness of breathing
training apps. We discuss which features could have allowed one visualization
(but not the other) to obtain better results than traditional audio-only
instructions. Keywords: Training; Mobile devices; Evaluation; Breathing; Visualization; Health | |||
| Suboptimal facial expression primes in textual media messages: Evidence for the affective congruency effect | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 64-77 | |
| Niklas Ravaja; Jari Kätsyri | |||
| The effectiveness of suboptimal affective primes in real media applications
has remained debatable. We investigated the effects of suboptimally (at 10-ms
exposure) presented facial expression primes on emotional responses to, and
cognitive evaluations of, textual (business news) messages ranging from
slightly unpleasant to slightly pleasant among 33 participants. Facial
expression primes were presented repeatedly on a simulated small screen of a
mobile device during a news reading task. Facial electromyography (EMG)
recordings were used as physiological indices of positive and negative
emotions. Our results showed affective congruency effects between news messages
and facial expression primes: joyful facial expressions, compared to angry
primes or no priming, elicited higher positive affect evaluations and more
positive facial EMG responses, as well as higher interest, when embedded in
affectively more positive news. On the other hand, the mere presence of
suboptimal primes was detrimental to the perceived trustworthiness of news.
These results suggest that embedding suboptimal facial expression primes into
textual media messages may exert an influence on affectively congruent
messages; at the same time, our results highlight the potential hazards and
difficulties of utilizing such primes. Keywords: Suboptimal affective priming; Digital media; Mobile devices; Emotions; Facial expressions | |||
| Factors affecting application developers' loyalty to mobile platforms | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 78-85 | |
| Min Ho Ryu; Junghwan Kim; Seongcheol Kim | |||
| Mobile platform providers, including Apple and Google, have grown quickly to
become central players in the mobile ecosystem. They now act as gatekeepers of
information among multiple niche players in the mobile ecosystem. Many players
from different industry sectors have tried to build their ecosystem centered on
their own mobile platform, but only a few have succeeded so far. In the so
called 'ecosystem war', one of the key issues for platform providers is how to
retain a sustainable relationship with other niche players in the ecosystem.
This paper investigates the factors influencing application developers' loyalty
to mobile platforms. To do this, this paper develops a model with key variables
based on loyalty theory and adds variables that reflect the specific context of
mobile platforms. The empirical analysis that was conducted in South Korea
shows that satisfaction is a direct antecedent of application developers'
loyalty to a mobile platform. The results also show that the quality of a
mobile platform's software development kit (SDK) is one of the important
determinants of application developers' satisfaction with a particular mobile
platform and also of the platform's credibility. However, there is no
significant relationship between the credibility and loyalty, which is not
consistent with previous studies in different research settings. This provides
us a clue to understand how the mobile platform market works and that mobile
platform providers have less incentive to create a fair relationship with
developers when they have a large customer base. Keywords: Mobile platform; Application developers; Loyalty; Mobile platform neutrality; PLS | |||
| Child-robot interaction across cultures: How does playing a game with a social robot compare to playing a game alone or with a friend? | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 86-100 | |
| Suleman Shahid; Emiel Krahmer; Marc Swerts | |||
| The present study investigates how children from two different cultural
backgrounds (Pakistani, Dutch) and two different age groups (8 and 12 year
olds) experience interacting with a social robot (iCat) during collaborative
game play. We propose a new method to evaluate children's interaction with such
a robot, by asking whether playing a game with a state-of-the-art social robot
like the iCat is more similar to playing this game alone or with a friend. A
combination of self-report scores, perception test results and behavioral
analyses indicate that child-robot interaction in game playing situations is
highly appreciated by children, although more by Pakistani and younger children
than by Dutch and older children. Results also suggest that children enjoyed
playing with the robot more than playing alone, but enjoyed playing with a
friend even more. In a similar vein, we found that children were more
expressive in their non-verbal behavior when playing with the robot than when
they were playing alone, but less expressive than when playing with a friend.
Our results not only stress the importance of using new benchmarks for
evaluating child-robot interaction but also highlight the significance of
cultural differences for the design of social robots. Keywords: Children; Robot; iCat; Evaluation paradigm; Cross-cultural differences; Age groups | |||
| Impacts of decision-making biases on eWOM retrust and risk-reducing strategies | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 101-110 | |
| Ya-Ching Lee | |||
| This study examined the role of decision-making biases (i.e., inertia,
overconfidence, illusion of control) in consumer retrust in electronic word of
mouth (eWOM) recommendations and the risk-reducing strategies of consumers. An
online survey was conducted. Of the 592 questionnaires collected, 567 responses
were suitable for analysis. The response rate was 95.78%. This study revealed
that inertia and overconfidence biases affect retrust in word-of-mouth
recommendations. In addition, consumers with a stronger illusion of control
bias place less trust in eWOM after having a negative experience. Furthermore,
the results indicated that the associations between risk-reducing strategies
and retrust in eWOM differ. On the theoretical level, this paper provides an
understanding of the effects of inertia, overconfidence, and the illusion of
control on eWOM retrust. In addition, this paper fills a gap in the literature,
thus advancing knowledge on how and why consumers retrust eWOM. The results of
the current study provide useful knowledge enabling firms to understand
decision-making biases and, thus, manage relationships with potential customers
and improve the quality of their products and services. For example, relying on
an eWOM Web site image was determined to be the primary risk-reducing strategy
in retrusting eWOM. Firms should continually track the flow of eWOM on
eWOM-posting Web sites. Keywords: Decision-making biases; Illusion of control; Inertia; Overconfidence; Risk; Word of mouth (WOM) | |||
| Individual differences in social networking site users: The interplay between antecedents and consequential effect on level of activity | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 111-118 | |
| Archana Krishnan; David Atkin | |||
| Based on the notion that individual users would utilize Social Networking
Sites (SNSs) in characteristic ways, we tested a structural model hypothesizing
that personality traits, communicative and social variables, attitudes, and
motives would affect level of SNS activity. Participants (n = 674) completed
measures of personality, communication apprehension, self-esteem, need for
affiliation, attitudes, motives of SNS use, and level of SNS activity. Results
offered support for the hypothesized model of SNS motivations and activity,
illustrating that SNSs were primarily used to maintain relational connections
with others. In addition, support was found for the contention that SNSs offer
beneficial social tools for all individuals; however, this effect was highest
for individuals already proficient in face-to-face social and communicative
behaviors. Keywords: Social networking; Personality; Communication apprehension; Need for affiliation; Self-esteem; Attitudes | |||
| The effects of various multimedia instructional materials on students' learning responses and outcomes: A comparative experimental study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 119-132 | |
| Yi-Hsuan Lee; Chan Hsiao; Chin-Husan Ho | |||
| We examine whether an e-learning curriculum involving various multimedia
instructional materials (MIMs) can stimulate learners' socialness perceptions,
and whether the difference in style has a specific effect on the students'
emotional states (arousal, pleasure, and flow experience) that consequently
affect the students' learning motivations and learning outcomes. We apply an
experimental design to three groups of students and compared three types of
presentation methods: (a) a PowerPoint presentation (b) a PowerPoint
presentation guided by a human-like animated character; (c) a PowerPoint
presentation guided by a monster-like animated character. The analysis results
show that various types of MIMs result in various social cues that have a
significant effect on the students' socialness perceptions, arousal, pleasure,
flow experience, learning motivation, and learning outcome. We contribute to
the field of e-learning by integrating MIM, social response theory, flow
theory, and learning theory into an innovative model, which sheds light on the
perspective that the three groups of various MIMs stimulate an emotional state
of students and maximize their learning outcomes. Therefore, when designing the
e-learning curricula with animated characters, we recommend that teachers
consider how these designs affect students' emotional responses to ensure the
best learning outcomes. Keywords: Animated characters; Multimedia instructional materials; Flow experience; Socialness perceptions; Learning motivation; Learning outcome | |||
| Measuring flow in gamification: Dispositional Flow Scale-2 | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 133-143 | |
| Juho Hamari; Jonna Koivisto | |||
| This paper measures flow in the context of gamification and investigates the
psychometric properties of the Dispositional Flow Scale-2 (DFS-2). We employ
data gathered from users of an exercise gamification service (N = 200). The
results show that the original DFS-2 factorial structure does result in a
similar model fit as the original work. However, we also present a factorial
respecification that satisfies more recent model fit thresholds. Beyond
validating the original DFS-2 instrument in the context of gamification, the
psychometric analysis and the respecifications suggest that the components of
flow divide into highly correlated conditions of flow (which were also found to
be more salient in the context of gamification: autotelic experience, balance
of skill and challenge, control, clear goals, and feedback) and into possible
outcomes (merging action-awareness, concentration, loss of sense of time, and
loss of self-consciousness) from achieving flow. Keywords: Flow; DFS-2; Gamification; Games for health; Exergames; Persuasive technology | |||
| Exploring online social behavior in crowdsourcing communities: A relationship management perspective | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 144-151 | |
| Xiao-Liang Shen; Matthew K. O. Lee; Christy M. K. Cheung | |||
| With the popularity of social media, crowdsourcing innovation provides new
ways to generate original and useful content. It offers a unique opportunity
for online crowds to communicate and collaborate on a variety of topics of
mutual interest. This study presents an initial attempt to explore and
understand online social behavior in crowdsourcing communities, with the
insights from both plural subject theory and commitment-trust theory. In
particular, two different types of collective intention (i.e., we-mode
collective intention, which refers to acting as a group member, and I-mode
collective intention, which refers to acting interdependently to contribute to
the group goal) were proposed. The research model was empirically examined with
longitudinal data collected from 202 wiki users. Findings indicated that,
although both I-mode and we-mode collective intentions significantly predicted
online social behavior in wiki communities, we-mode collective intention
exerted a greater effect on users' behavior. In addition,
relationship-orientated factors (e.g., trust and commitment) only affected
we-mode, instead of I-mode, collective intention. This study finally yields
several implications for both research and practice. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Collective intention; Commitment-trust theory; Plural subject theory; Mass collaboration; Wiki community | |||
| Cyberslacking, engagement, and personality in distributed work environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 152-160 | |
| Thomas A. O'Neill; Laura A. Hambley; Gina S. Chatellier | |||
| The modern workplace is becoming increasingly reliant on distributed work
arrangements, in which employees work part- or full-time from home, coffee
shops, satellite offices, and elsewhere rather than at a centralized location.
There are questions about the role of personality in shaping work behavior
during distributed work, particularly with respect to cyberslacking and work
engagement as indicators of distributed work effectiveness. Cyberslacking can
be viewed as an extension of typical counterproductive workplace behavior, and
it involves distraction and putting off work to "surf the Internet." Engagement
can be viewed as the intensity of physical, cognitive, and emotional
involvement with work activities. We found that non-Big Five personality
traits, Honesty and Procrastination, were important predictors of these
outcomes. Moreover, we developed three sets of intermediary behaviors linking
personality to distributed work effectiveness: regular upward communication,
self-management tactics, and conscious socialization efforts. Finally,
personality profiles were identified with latent profile analyses in order to
determine which "types" of people are more successful than others in
distributed work. Keywords: Personality; Telework; Remote work; Mobile work; Cyberslacking; Latent profile analysis | |||
| The effects of technostress within the context of employee use of ICT | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 161-170 | |
| Anna Mette Fuglseth; Øystein Sørebø | |||
| The main purpose of the present study is to help managers cope with the
negative effects of technostress on employee use of ICT. Drawing on transaction
theory of stress (Cooper, Dewe, & O'Driscoll, 2001) and information systems
(IS) continuance theory (Bhattacherjee, 2001) we investigate the effects of
technostress on employee intentions to extend the use of ICT at work. Our
results show that factors that create and inhibit technostress affect both
employee satisfaction with the use of ICT and employee intentions to extend the
use of ICT. Our findings have important implications for the management of
technostress with regard to both individual stress levels and organizational
performance. A key implication of our research is that managers should
implement strategies for coping with technostress through the theoretical
concept of technostress inhibitors. Keywords: Technostress; User satisfaction; Continuance intention; Formative instruments | |||
| Photo-messaging: Adopter attributes, technology factors and use motives | | BIBA | Full-Text | 171-179 | |
| Daniel S. Hunt; Carolyn A. Lin; David J. Atkin | |||
| The purpose of this study was to develop a model of technology diffusion and impression management variables on photo-messaging behavior. Diffusion variables, such as innovativeness and technology clusters, were demonstrated to be predictors of sending photo messages and online sharing. Impression management motives -- self-expression and self-presentation -- were also indicators of photo-messaging. The perceived usefulness of mobile technology for sending and sharing was identified as an important influence of photo-messaging frequency; while perceived ease of use was not a predictor. Taken together, the findings indicate the importance of integrating technological adoption factors and motives for impression management in social media research. | |||
| Cross-cultural comparison of hand gestures of Japanese and Germans for tabletop systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 180-189 | |
| Jacqueline Urakami | |||
| Goal was to study cultural differences between Japanese and Germans gesture
use when interacting with a map and a video walkthrough application for a table
top system. Japanese and Germans' choice of gestures was compared in a
quasi-experimental design. Gestures had to be generated for two different
scenarios, an electronic map and a video walkthrough. Data revealed that
physical aspects of hand gestures such as hand shape, focus on motion pattern,
and preference of simple, one-hand gestures are similar between Japanese and
Germans. However, Japanese and Germans differed in the choice of symbolic and
metaphorical gestures and in the frame of reference and perspective taken for
performing gestures. Furthermore, differences between Germans and Japanese were
larger for the map application than for the video walkthrough. Culture partly
affects the choice of hand gestures for table top systems. Designers of gesture
vocabularies for tabletop systems have to carefully consider which referents
are carried out by hand gestures alone. Gesture input appears to be appropriate
for the direct manipulation of objects or real world applications. However,
abstract functions or artificial realities should not be handled by gestures
alone. Also, designers should consider the development of culture-centered
interfaces. Keywords: Cultural differences; User study; Surface gestures; Hand gestures; Japanese; German | |||