| Social media,as a kind of emerging online media which offers users a high level of freedom to interact with each other,has become a platform based on social relationships among users.In social media,characteristics,such as commonality,participatory,dialogism and communitization,promote users9 adoption of social media through offering usage experiences such as rapid information communication,convenient information sharing&collaboration,and social contact.According to present application,social media is undergoing the stage of service integration and platform integration.The differences among various social media platforms are becoming much smaller.People bon after 1980s grow up in the digital environment,they are known as Digital Natives.The network has been integrated into their lives,and their main characteristic is using digital means to live,study and work.In China,the earliest generation of Digital Natives has become the backbone in all areas of social life.Being familiar with information technology and internet applications makes them to be the core users of social media services at present and in the future.Thus,the research on Digital Natives' adoption of the social media has a great positive significance in both theory and practice.In this study,relevant literature and theory are reviewed first,then meta-analysis is used to integrate factors which significantly related with the adoption of the social media based on a summary of empirical literatures of the adoption of social media.Through a series of investigations(e.g.,in-depth interviews,focus groups),factors related with Digital Native9 adoption of social media are extracted by grounded theory.As a result,a theoretical frame of Digital Natives' adoption of social media is established.Then the model is verified by survey-based structure equation model.Behavioral characteristics and influencing factors of Digital Native's adoption of the social media are acquired.Finally,behavioral characteristics of the digital natives in different stages of adoption are described through Persona,and the role of influencing factors in different stages of adoption are also discussed.The conclusions of this dissertation are listed as follows:(1)Thirty-nine factors are significantly related with the adoption of social media.Regarding the levels of correlation,perceived enjoyment is the highest,privacy concern is the lowest.Perceive risk is negatively related with users' adoption,and itnovation,extroversion and task characteristics are not significantly related with users' adoption behavior.(2)Motivation and perception of emotions are internal factors of Digital Natives ' adoption of social media,while the functions of a social media platform and social situation are external factors.Characteristic of users' ability moderates the relationship between motivations and adoption intentions.(3)The digital natives are heavy users of social media services.They adopt a broader range of the platforms and have deep and rich usage experiences.The main purposes of their adoption are information acquiring,chatting and entertainment.The factors which are significantly related with the adoption of social media include emotional dependence,media richness,social presence,task-media match,economy and efficiency.Moreover,internet experience negatively moderates the relationship between emotional dependence and adoption of social media.(4)Digital Natives' adoption of social media is related with emotional dependence and cluster effect formed by platforms.Economy and efficiency,task-media match,social fimction and social presence are the factors which influence continual usage.Emotional dependence,the negative moderation of internet experiences on the relationship between emotional dependence and adoption intention,and disappearance of the cluster effect are the reasons that lead to abandonment of adoption.Media richness is the factor which influences adoption across different stages of adoption.Moreover,effect of privacy security in the process of adoption shows differences among individual digital natives.The main contribution of this dissertation include:(1)This dissertation enriches the literature on the use of social media,and expands the researching avenues for the mechanism analysis of users' behavior.The results of the meta-analysis provide a more accurate estimate of the effects of influencing factors of social media adoption.This is an important supplement to the research on the adoption of social media.The integrated framework for the adoption of social media based on the meta-analysis will be helpful to understand users'behaviors of using social media platforms which are in the continuous integration,and will provide valuable enlightenments for the development and operation of social media.(2)This dissertation not only expands the sample distribution to primary school,middle school,high school,college and the groups of workers who grow up in the digital environment,but also establishes a theoretical model according to remarkable features of Digital Natives and draws conclusions about characteristics of Digital Natives.Moreover,by specifying different stages of users' adoption,this dissertation analyzes the social media behaviors and characteristics of different adoption types of digital natives,in order to show influencing mechanisms of the factors which affect users' adoption behaviors.The research can help social media operators to understand the behavioral characteristics and influencing mechanisms of the factors which affect users' adoption behaviors.From the website design and operation perspectives,the research can provide ideas for the operators to select the combination of social media elements,and it has practical significance on improving usage experience and promoting the development of social media. |
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