Twitter Acceptance as an Information Source

Abstract

Twitter Acceptance as an Information SourceThis study aims to investigate the factors that affect students’ acceptance of the social network Twitter as an information source, relying on a modified technology acceptance model (TAM). The study identifies factors of student Twitter usage as an information source, which has not been widely studied. Data were gathered using a survey, whose questions were adapted and customized based on previous studies. A modeling was employed to examine the proposed relationships of six factors—perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, social influence, behavioral intention, and actual use—on Twitter usage as an information source by social sciences students from Kuwait University. Findings show that social influence is a stronger predictor on behavioral intention and perceived usefulness. Unlike previous studies that use TAM in a social media context, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment were not significant antecedents of behavioral intention. Perceived enjoyment influences only perceived ease of use in this study. As expected, behavioral intention was an important antecedent of actual use.