Effect of Media Richness on Older Adults’ Routinized Use of Social Media in Mobile Applications

Abstract

Given the ambivalent relationship between social media’s characteristics and the elderly usage, the missing link of the older consumers’ emotional attachment to the media product, and the lack of theoretical and empirical insights on the contextual family influence issue, this study examines how media richness drives the older users’ routine usage of media in a mobile application by considering the mediating role of emotional attachment and the moderating role of reverse intergeneration influence. Based on the data collected through 294 older users aged 60 and over in China, the hypothesized structural model is tested using path analysis. First, this study validates that media richness has a positive impact on the elderly’s routine use via a partial mediator emotional attachment. Second, this study reveals that the direct and indirect effect of media richness on routine use is moderated by the moderator reverse intergenerational influence. Third, this study finds that reverse intergenerational influence serves as a double-edge moderating role in the routine usage decision. These findings shed light on the underlying mechanism of the elderly’s routine use and provide applicable implications for the mobile application development practice in evoking the elderly’s routine use.