Mobile Social Apps Research Articles

Humor and camera view on mobile short-form video apps influence user experience and technology-adoption intent, an example of TikTok (DouYin)

Mobile short-form videos on social media apps are increasingly popular. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) theories may be extended to short-form video apps to understand and improve app user experience, as well as to persuade new technology-adoption. The present study examined the psychological responses and persuasive outcomes associated with short-form videos on a mobile social media app. In a 2 (low- V.S. high-level humor) X 2 (first- V.S. third-person view) between-subject experimental design, participants (N = 81) were randomly assigned one of the four sets of videos about smart homes; post-viewing, they filled out an online questionnaire. Results of ANCOVA demonstrated significant effects of videos' humor and camera view on the viewer perceptions of Immersion, Social Presence and Entertainment but not on Spatial Presence and Perceptual Realism: Humor had mixed effects on the interaction between users and the mobile app; the first-person camera view elevated viewers' Immersion, Social Presence, Entertainment. As a PROCESS mediation test showed, Social Presence mediated (by 56.78%) the indirect link between the level of humor getting from a video and the viewers’ post-viewing intent to adopt the technology depicted in the video. The study demonstrated values of extending HCI theories to mobile short-form video apps. Implications were discussed in terms of using appropriate humor and camera view for improving user experience and persuading serious agenda.

Improving the quality of bowel preparation through an app for inpatients undergoing colonoscopy: A randomized controlled trial.

To explore whether educational information delivered via a medical smartphone app in conjunction with verbal and written instructions, compared with traditional booklet-based and verbal instructions, could improve the quality of bowel preparation for hospitalized patients undergoing colonoscopy. A prospective, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial. We performed a prospective, endoscopist-blinded, randomized, controlled trial at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University in China between October 2017-March 2018. Inpatients who are eligible, based on the inclusion criteria, were randomized into two groups. Both groups received oral and written instructions for bowel preparation. In addition, the smartphone app group received instructions through a medical smartphone app. The primary outcome was the rate of adequate bowel preparation according to the Boston bowel preparation scale score. The secondary outcomes included patient compliance with instructions on how to take laxatives, side effects and rates of adenoma detection. A total of 293 patients were enrolled in this study. Demographic characteristics were comparable between the two groups. The χ2 test showed that the medical smartphone app group showed significant improvement in the rate of adequate bowel preparation compared with the control group (77.2% vs. 56.8%, p<.001). The adenoma detection rate (ADR) was significantly higher in the smartphone app group than in the control group (21.4% vs. 12.8%, p=.029) based on the χ2 test. The rates of incomplete compliance with instructions were 15.17% in the smartphone app group and 33.11% in the control group (p<.001) based on the χ2 test. The overall adverse events were 23.45% and 37.84% in the smartphone app and control groups, respectively (p=.008), based on the χ2 test. Instructions provided via a mobile social media app in conjunction with traditional verbal and written methods could improve the quality of bowel preparation, increase the ADR and decrease adverse effects. App instructions could be an effective addition to oral and written instructions for inpatients undergoing colonoscopy. This study suggested that clinical personnel could deliver information via smartphone as a powerful addition to traditional educational methods that could improve work efficiency and help patients increase the success rate of bowel preparation. Chinese clinical trial registration number: ChiCTR1900024666.

Using social media in mobile MOOC for teacher professional development

This paper presents a ubiquitous and mobile MOOC platform to foster lifelong learning. Harnessing the technological affordances of WeChat (a mobile social media app), learners accessed micro-learning activities and received personal learning analysis report on their mobile phones. Premised on activity theory, the mobile MOOC design model spans across five dimensions of intelligent distribution: learning objective analysis, learner persona analysis, platform improvement based on learning analytics, m-learn tool selection and m-learn interactive environment where the latter forms the core of individual and collaborative learning. To investigate learning effectiveness, we analysed the survey data of 117 Shanghai kindergarten, primary and secondary teachers in one mini-lecture. Findings showed that learning satisfaction and learning achievement are highly correlated with the learnability of the learning environment. The integration of a multidimensional activity and multi-scenario model showed great potential to successfully accommodate the complexity and diversity of mobile MOOC learning activities in a ubiquitous-learning environment.

Variations in the adoption and use of mobile social apps in everyday lives in urban and rural China

China has in recent years seen the rapid adoption of multifunctional social networking applications such as WeChat. This paper aims to explore if China’s social stratification has influenced the adoption and use of mobile social apps and if social apps such as WeChat can help to bridge the digital divide by providing urban and rural users equal access to diverse information and communication resources. The study is based on 4 months of fieldwork in the Henan Province of central China and combines quantitative data from surveys and qualitative data from semistructured interviews and focus groups. We found that there still exists a digital gap in the adoption and use of mobile social apps such as WeChat between rural and urban China, but such differences are also associated with demographic variables such as age, gender, and education level. Meanwhile, we found that WeChat has become more than a communication tool; it has also played an essential role in everyday problem-solving and information seeking for both rural and urban users. Our qualitative interviews and focus group studies reveal how WeChat influences various aspects of daily life in developing areas in China. We argue that although some divides in information seeking are being overcome, other new divides are emerging.

Effectiveness and Parental Acceptability of Social Networking Interventions for Promoting Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Among Young Children: Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundSeasonal influenza vaccination (SIV) coverage among young children remains low worldwide. Mobile social networking apps such as WhatsApp Messenger are promising tools for health interventions.ObjectiveThis was a preliminary study to test the effectiveness and parental acceptability of a social networking intervention that sends weekly vaccination reminders and encourages exchange of SIV-related views and experiences among mothers via WhatsApp discussion groups for promoting childhood SIV. The second objective was to examine the effect of introducing time pressure on mothers’ decision making for childhood SIV for vaccination decision making. This was done using countdowns of the recommended vaccination timing.MethodsMothers of child(ren) aged 6 to 72 months were randomly allocated to control or to one of two social networking intervention groups receiving vaccination reminders with (SNI+TP) or without (SNI–TP) a time pressure component via WhatsApp discussion groups at a ratio of 5:2:2. All participants first completed a baseline assessment. Both the SNI–TP and SNI+TP groups subsequently received weekly vaccination reminders from October to December 2017 and participated in WhatsApp discussions about SIV moderated by a health professional. All participants completed a follow-up assessment from April to May 2018.ResultsA total of 84.9% (174/205), 71% (57/80), and 75% (60/80) who were allocated to the control, SNI–TP, and SNI+TP groups, respectively, completed the outcome assessment. The social networking intervention significantly promoted mothers’ self-efficacy for taking children for SIV (SNI–TP: odds ratio [OR] 2.69 [1.07-6.79]; SNI+TP: OR 2.50 [1.13-5.55]), but did not result in significantly improved children’s SIV uptake. Moreover, after adjusting for mothers’ working status, introducing additional time pressure reduced the overall SIV uptake in children of working mothers (OR 0.27 [0.10-0.77]) but significantly increased the SIV uptake among children of mothers without a full-time job (OR 6.53 [1.87-22.82]). Most participants’ WhatsApp posts were about sharing experience or views (226/434, 52.1%) of which 44.7% (101/226) were categorized as negative, such as their concerns over vaccine safety, side effects and effectiveness. Although participants shared predominantly negative experience or views about SIV at the beginning of the discussion, the moderator was able to encourage the discussion of more positive experience or views and more knowledge and information. Most intervention group participants indicated willingness to receive the same interventions (110/117, 94.0%) and recommend the interventions to other mothers (102/117, 87.2%) in futureConclusionsOnline information support can effectively promote mothers’ self-efficacy for taking children for SIV but alone it may not sufficient to address maternal concerns over SIV to achieve a positive vaccination decision. However, the active involvement of health professionals in online discussions can shape positive discussions about vaccination. Time pressure on decision making interacts with maternal work status, facilitating vaccination uptake among mothers who may have more free time, but having the opposite effect among busier working mothers.Trial RegistrationHong Kong University Clinical Trials Registry HKUCTR-2250; https://tinyurl.com/vejv276

Inferring demographics from human trajectories and geographical context

The advances of positioning technologies and the widespread use of mobile devices bring us massive data with location information, or so-called big geo-data. One important part of big geo-data is massive digital human trajectories recorded by location-enabled mobile terminals and social apps. Digital human trajectories have been studied to learn more about human mobility and human activity. Existing research has shown that there exist strong associations between trajectory patterns and demographics. Given that demographics are essential information to various domains but not easy to acquire timely and on a large scale, inferring demographics from human trajectories has attracted attention from academia. In this paper, we proposed a demographics inferring framework suitable for big geo-data processing. Trajectory patterns were quantified from both spatiotemporal and semantic perspectives. Spatiotemporal features extracted from trajectories directly were used for capturing how people traveled in space and time. Semantic features obtained by attaching geographical context to trajectories were to reflect activities people conducted. Spatiotemporal and semantic features were organized into feature vectors and then input to supervised classification models to infer demographics. GPS trajectories and land use data in Beijing were used to validate the framework. Results show that the inference accuracies of marital status and residency status achieve 80% and thus prove the feasibility of our framework. This study can facilitate decision making in both business and social studies, such as personalized recommendation, commercial site selection and urban planning.

Estimation of the Population Size of Men Who Have Sex With Men in Vietnam: Social App Multiplier Method.

BackgroundAlthough the prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Vietnam has been increasing in recent years, there are no estimates of the population size of MSM based on tested empirical methods.ObjectiveThis study aimed to estimate the size of the MSM population in 12 provinces in Vietnam and extrapolate from those areas to generate a national population estimate of MSM. A secondary aim of this study was to compare the feasibility of obtaining the number of users of a mobile social (chat and dating) app for MSM using 3 different approaches.MethodsThis study used the social app multiplier method to estimate the size of MSM populations in 12 provinces using the count of users on a social app popular with MSM in Vietnam as the first data source and a questionnaire propagated through the MSM community using respondent-driven sampling as the second data source. A national estimation of the MSM population is extrapolated from the results in the study provinces, and the percentage of MSM reachable through online social networks is clarified.ResultsThe highest MSM population size among the 12 provinces is estimated in Hanoi and the lowest is estimated in Binh Dinh. On average, 37% of MSM in the provinces surveyed had used the social app Jack’d in the last 30 days (95% CI 27-48). Extrapolation of the results from the study provinces with reliable estimations results in an estimated national population of 178,000 MSM (95% CI 122,000-512,000) aged 15 to 49 years in Vietnam. The percentage of MSM among adult males aged 15 to 49 years in Vietnam is 0.68% (95% CI 0.46-1.95).ConclusionsThis study is the first attempt to empirically estimate the population of MSM in Vietnam and highlights the feasibility of reaching a large proportion of MSM through a social app. The estimation reported in this study is within the bounds suggested by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. This study provides valuable information on MSM population sizes in provinces where reliable estimates were obtained, which they can begin to work with in program planning and resource allocation.

Examining the Predictors of Mobile Addiction: Some Insights from Malaysia

This research aims to investigate the predictors of mobile addiction. The data was analyzed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach supported by Smart-PLS 2.0 to assess the hypothesis in the research model. The PLS-SEM technique revealed that there was a strong correlation between social networking sites (SNS) intensity and mobile addiction. Users have positively expressed that visiting SNS is part of their everyday activity as they tend to check their SNS almost every day. They have this perception that they will feel out of touch when they do not log into their SNS for a day. In addition, they feel as if they are part of the community of SNS on campus. Those with many SNS accounts have a strong tendency to install and use mobile social networking apps on their mobile phones to connect and communicate with others. These heavy users frequently use their mobile phone to log into their social network via preferred social networking apps and actively use it to check the SNS. The direction for future research is also presented.

Why are experienced users of WeChat likely to continue using the app?

PurposeMobile social apps permeate every facet of daily life through the pervasive use of smartphones. Customer retention with mobile social apps has become extremely important for app-related companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore why experienced users in mobile social apps (e.g. WeChat) are likely to continue using the app.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposed a conceptual model to identify key determinants of continuance intention of WeChat users and highlight the effects of individual experience. Data were collected from WeChat users, which is one of the most popular mobile social apps in China. The study employed partial least squares regression to test the research model based on a survey of 295 valid responses.FindingsResults showed that trust, which was driven by user satisfaction and perceived critical mass, played a critical role in influencing the continuance intention of WeChat users. Moreover, tie strength exerted a negative moderating effect on the relationship between trust and continuance intention. Specifically, tie strength and perceived critical mass had strong impacts on the continuance intention of low-experience users. In addition, the effect of frequency was closely associated with the continuance intention of high-experience users.Research limitations/implicationsThis study addressed the issue of mobile social app continuance intention by providing an innovative means to explore the key antecedents of user continuance intention from the experience perspective. The findings not only prove that trust plays a central role in influencing the continuance intention of experienced users but also reveal that the determinants of continuance intention vary among users with different experience. The results provide insights into the key antecedents of experienced WeChat user continuance intention and contribute to the literature on mobile social apps and individual differences.Practical implicationsThe results provide suggestions for mobile social app practitioners to effectively plan mobile social app retention practices and to set up appropriate incentive mechanisms for retaining users with different experiences.Originality/valueAlthough abundant studies have focused on the adoption of media users, few studies have investigated the post-adoption behavior of experienced users in the context of mobile social apps. This study revealed the key determinants of the continuance intention of WeChat users and pinpointed the different impacts of these antecedents on users with different levels of experience. It also provides useful guidelines for practitioners to effectively retain users with different levels of experience.

Understanding the Intention of Using Mobile Social Networking Apps Across Cultures

ABSTRACTUnderstanding the user acceptance of mobile social networking apps in different cultures can provide powerful insights for managers and marketers of social networking apps to develop effective globalized and localized strategies to attract users worldwide. Following the theory of planned behavior, this study develops a research model of privacy concern (PC), privacy risk (PR), and perceived enjoyment (PE) as attitudinal beliefs, subjective norm (SN) as normative belief, and smartphone self-efficacy (SE) as control belief to understand users’ intention to use mobile social networking apps. In particular, the impact of culture was investigated, considering the user base of mobile social networking apps is distributed globally and culturally diversified, and cultural values have direct impact on behavior. The research model was validated by survey data collected from 151 participants in the U.S. and 170 participants in South Korea. The data analysis results show that perceived enjoyment and subjective norm are the most important drivers behind users’ intention to use mobile social networking apps for both countries. No significant difference was found for the effects of privacy risk and subjective norm upon users’ intention to use mobile social networking apps across cultures. Implications of the findings upon theory and practice are discussed.

Impact of privacy concern on using mobile social networking apps: an empirical study

Impact of privacy concern on using mobile social networking apps: an empirical study

Measurement and Analysis of the Swarm Social Network With Tens of Millions of Nodes

Social graphs have been widely used for representing the relationship among users in online social networks (OSNs). As crawling an entire OSN is resource- and time-consuming, most of the existing works only pick a sampled subgraph for study. However, this may introduce serious inaccuracy into the analytic results, not to mention that some important metrics cannot even be calculated. In this paper, we crawl the entire social network of Swarm, a leading mobile social app with more than 60 million users, using a distributed approach. Based on the crawled massive user data, we conduct a data-driven study to get a comprehensive picture of the whole Swarm social network. This paper provides a deep analysis of social interactions between Swarm users, and reveals the relationship between social connectivity and check-in activities.

Who uses mobile apps to meet strangers: The roles of core traits and surface characteristics

ABSTRACTDigital space continues to be a popular venue for meeting new people. However, little is known about who uses mobile context-aware social networking apps to initiate new relationships. This study investigates the roles of individual core traits and surface characteristics in the adoption of social discovery features on WeChat, a mobile social networking app in China. Analysis of survey data collected from 213 WeChat users finds the core traits of agreeableness and neuroticism to be negatively related to the use of these social discovery features. The surface characteristic of sensation seeking is positively related to the use of social discovery features, while the surface characteristic of loneliness is not. Based on the findings, directions for future research and implications for app developers and marketers are suggested.

Use of mobile social apps for public communication in China: Gratifications as antecedents of reposting articles from WeChat public accounts

Mobile social networking apps, which offer a real-time platform for creating, sharing, and chatting, showcase the integration of mobile telephony and Web 2.0 technologies. Thanks to its thriving user-created public accounts, WeChat, a globally popular mobile social media app based in China, has become a digital source of news and information. Informed by the uses and gratifications framework, the present study examines predictors of reposting articles from WeChat public accounts and subscribing to these accounts. Findings show that use of WeChat for public communication is extensive. Predictors of such behavior include mass media and Internet use. Also, perceived credibility of WeChat is a significant predictor. With demographic and media use variables being controlled, two gratifications of WeChat (i.e., dependence on WeChat for information and mobile connectedness with one’s circles) were found to be the strongest predictors of reposting articles on WeChat public accounts. The theoretical implications of information mobility for changing China’s status quo in media environments are discussed.

Compulsive mobile application usage and technostress: the role of personality traits

PurposeCompulsive usage of mobile applications may have a negative effect on people’s health and social interaction. Past studies have indicated that personality traits were related to compulsive usage of technologies, but most of them have explored the factors from the system and interface design perspectives, specifically. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Big Five personality traits, materialism, and external locus of control affect compulsive mobile application usage, and examines how compulsive usage impacts technostress.Design/methodology/approachThe present study proposes a framework based on Big Five personality traits and related literature. The author collected a total of 546 valid responses to the online survey, and the author examined the 18 proposed hypotheses using SmartPLS software.FindingsThe results show that neuroticism, extraversion, materialism, and external locus of control have significant effects on compulsive usage of mobile social applications. In addition, agreeableness, materialism, and external locus of control significantly influence compulsive usage of mobile game applications. Compulsive usage (of both mobile social apps and mobile games), materialism, and external locus of control all have a positive, direct impact on technostress.Practical implicationsThis study offers mobile app design companies and educational institutions a understanding of the social problems caused by the misuse of mobile devices, helping them to prevent the increase of the negative influences of such misuse.Originality/valueThe primary value of this paper lies in providing a better understanding of the influence of personality traits on the compulsive use of mobile apps and technostress.

An empirical study of mobile social app continuance intention: integrating flow experience and switching costs

Recent fast advances in information technologies have dramatically expanded the use of mobile social apps (i.e., applications). Compared to other products or services, switching costs of mobile social apps are lower as a user can easily switch from one mobile social app to another. In order to figure out factors influencing users' continuance intention and provide practical implications on building users' loyalty, we integrate flow experience and switching costs to build an empirical model. Specifically, we take Wechat as an example to investigate due to its popularity in China. Survey and structural equation model (SEM) are used to test the research model. The results show that: perceived enjoyment has influence on flow experience, and further affects users' continuance intention; switching costs exert positive effect on continuance intention; flow experience exerts partial mediating effect between perceived enjoyment and continuance intention. Related theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

An empirical study of mobile social app continuance intention: integrating flow experience and switching costs

An empirical study of mobile social app continuance intention: integrating flow experience and switching costs

Excessive Dependence on Mobile Social Apps: A Rational Addiction Perspective

Drawing on the rational addiction framework, this study explores the digital vulnerabilities driven by excessive dependence on mobile social apps (e.g., SNS and social games). Rational addicts anticipate the future consequences of their current behaviors and attempt to maximize utility from their intertemporal consumption choices. Conversely, myopic addicts tend toward immediate gratification and fail to fully recognize the future harmful consequences of their current consumption. In lieu of conducting self-report surveys or aggregate-level demand estimation, this research examines addictive behaviors on the basis of consumption quantity at an individual level. To empirically validate rational addiction in the context of social app consumption, we collect and analyze 13-month, individual-level panel data on the weekly app usage of thousands of smartphone users. Results indicate that the average social app user conducts herself in a forward-looking manner and rationally adjusts consumption over time to derive optimal utility. The subgroup analysis, however, indicates that substantial variations in addictiveness and forward-looking propensities exist across demographically diverse groups. For example, addictive behaviors toward SNSs are more myopic in nature among older, less-educated, high-income groups. Additionally, type of social app moderates the effects of demographic characteristics on the nature of addictive behaviors. We provide valuable implications that policymakers can use to effectively manage mobile addiction problems, with the recommendations focusing on asymmetric social policies (e.g., information- and capacity-enhancing measures).

Data intelligence on the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things, which enables the interconnection, interoperation, and collaboration between smart things, allows collecting data from various sources, including GPS data of vehicles, real-time traffic data of road cameras, weather data (e.g., temperature or air quality data) from environment sensors and user-generated contents (e.g., tweets, micro-blog, check-ins, photos) from mobile social APPs. In fact, sensory data have been widely available in large volume and variety nowadays. Sensory data exhibit specific characteristics, including multi-sources, heterogeneous, large-scale, real-time streaming, continuous, ever-expanding, and spatial-temporal. Traditional approaches or platforms are limited in processing these sensory data, which are big data actually. The engineering and intelligence on sensory data covers the theories and technologies of different disciplines to provide efficient processing and smart analysis. Intensive research is required on sensory data engineering and intelligence. This special issue, as a dedicated forum, aims for the scientific and industrial community to present their novel models, methodologies, techniques, and solutions which can address theoretical and practical issues. It is worth mentioning that the majority of submissions are the selected papers with high quality which have been reported at the 2015 Smart World Congress. These selected papers are seriously improved and recommended to this special issue

Excessive Dependence on Mobile Social Apps: A Rational Addiction Perspective

Drawing on the rational addiction framework, this study explores the digital vulnerabilities driven by dependence on mobile social apps (e.g., social network sites and social games). Rational addicts anticipate the future consequences of their current behaviors and attempt to maximize utility from their intertemporal consumption choices. Conversely, myopic addicts tend toward immediate gratification and fail to fully recognize the future consequences of their current consumption. In lieu of conducting self-report surveys or aggregate-level demand estimation, this research examines addictive behaviors on the basis of consumption quantity at an individual level. To empirically validate rational addiction in the context of social app consumption, we collect and analyze 13-month, individual-level panel data on the weekly app usage of thousands of smartphone users. Results indicate that the average social app user conducts herself in a forward-looking manner and rationally adjusts consumption over time to derive optimal utility. The subgroup analysis, however, indicates that substantial variations in addictiveness and forward-looking propensities exist across demographically diverse groups. For example, addictive behaviors toward social network sites are more myopic in nature among older, less-educated, high-income groups. Additionally, the type of social app moderates the effects of demographic characteristics on the nature of addictive behaviors. We provide implications that policymakers can use to effectively manage mobile addiction problems, with the recommendations focusing on asymmetric social policies (e.g., information- and capacity-enhancing measures).