Excessive use of online video streaming services: Impact of recommender system use, psychological factors, and motives

Abstract

With the growing relevance of the Internet as a tool for communication and entertainment, researchers have examined the effects of individual's psychological factors and media use motives on their excessive use of Internet. Since Internet use has significant nuances, the excessive use of particular Internet application, such as social network services and online games, has been studied separately. However, as the major Internet application, online video streaming service has not been investigated. Moreover, other than psychological factors and media use motives, the IT features implemented in the application, such as the recommender system, could also induce excessive use behavior. This paper aims to examine individual's excessive use of online video streaming services and the effects of recommender system in such services. A survey of 490 video streaming service users was conducted. The results show that the use of recommendations, along with lack of self-control, lack of self-esteem and use motive of information seeking, lead to excessive usage of video streaming services. This study contributes to the literature of excessive Internet use by exploring individual's excessive use behavior in video streaming services and incorporating the salient role of recommender system in Internet applications.