Factors influencing users’ post replying behavior in a senior online community: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Senior online communities (SOCs) have become an important venue for older people to seek support and exchange information. While online community engagement has been well studied in the existing literature, few studies have explored how older adults behave in online communities. Therefore, drawing upon signaling theory, this study aims to investigate how different content-related and social-related signals influence users’ post replying behavior (i.e., reply to another user’s post) in SOCs. We collected 7486 health-related posts and 71,859 comments from one of the most popular Chinese SOCs, Keai (https://www.keai99.com). Information signals in the posts were operationalized using different techniques such as text mining and social network analysis. Results from negative binomial regression indicated that content-related signals (posts’ topic and length) and social-related signals (authors’ position and centrality) were related to replying behavior. In addition, we revealed some differences between the effects of these signals on informational replies and emotional replies. More specifically, compared to posts mentioning traditional Chinese medicine, posts mentioning western medicine received more informational replies, but less emotional replies. Original posts triggered more informational replies, whereas shared posts attracted more emotional replies. Average reply length was positively related to informational replies, but negatively related to emotional replies. Considering the important role of SOCs in satisfying older adults’ social and informational needs, future research is needed to promote user social engagement in SOCs, thereby maintaining their sustainability.