Abstract
Social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are originally developed as communication tools among individuals for private conversations. Through the platforms, people share photos, stories and news with their social media friends to interact with their close friends and update others about their lives. Despite criticisms on the true quality and values of the relationships developed through social media platforms, the power of social media as communication tools that digitally connect people can hardly be denied nowadays.
However, as social media become increasingly prevalent, the social media extends its boundaries of the usage. Nowadays people use social media not only as a tool for personal communication but also as a base system that characterizes people's overall style of online connections with others. For example, significant portion of social media users start their day browsing news updates from social media and go to bed after going through all the contents from social media. While for most of people social media are more than communication tools and serve as lubricating oil for the daily lives, some people experience serious anxiety level when they are disconnected for a certain period of times.
As more people use social media in different styles, defining and characterizing the types of social media usage becomes increasingly difficult. Numerous studies have examined the effects of social media from different perspectives, but most of them limited the main purpose of the use to communication but did not fully discuss the possibility of other roles and values of the social media: only few studies broaden the views on social media and integrate various types of usage. What would be and should be the full utilization of social media are not yet fully understood because the purposes and functions embedded in the platforms evolve and diversify fast.
This study classifies the types of social media users based on their primary and secondary motivations for using social media. We project that people will exhibit different types of usage based on their specific anticipation for a reward from the use and the personal traits that determines the level of engagement in using social media. To do so, we also introduce two constructs, namely, social capital and compulsion loop. The former characterizes people's expectation for the reward from the use of social media, and the latter explains the role of personal trait in the processes of social media contents consumption. We combine these two dimensions of usage to develop a social media user classification model.
Specifically, we propose that the anticipation for social capital will be the foundation for the social media usage, whereas the compulsion loop will be the key framework that maintains and possibly accelerates social media usage. To explain the role and features of social capital, social capital theory is applied. This theory provides the foundations for analyzing social media as a relationship management tool. We then use compulsion loop framework to determine the characteristics of social media outlet as news medium.
This framework explains how people engage with social media and exhibit different types of usage when they consume contents from the platform. From these, we expect to confirm that social media are now more than a relationship management tool; they function as news outlet or portal that deeply affects user behaviors.
Social capital is defined as the set of resources rooted in the relationships among various actors within a network [14]. It is also an aspect that presents "who knows whom" within the networks [14]. These resources are within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships [12] and can be created and traded by purposive actions of individuals [8]. They are embedded in the various forms of social structures and organizations, such as networks, norms, and trust.
Social capital has received considerable attention from researchers in various social science disciplines because it often facilitates coordination and cooperation among people for their mutual benefits [13], supports in achieving personal goals [6], and even utilizes the networks for collective actions.
On the basis of these characteristics, we propose that a strong anticipation for social capital will attract people to use social media as an action of social capital investment. Social media are web-based services that support users to privately interact on various topics, share daily lives, and exchange personal stories [10]. Social media platform assist individuals to build a profile within a system and attain social media friends with whom they share a connection [2]. It eliminates physical boundaries of relationship buildings and supports easy and frequent interactions among friends. These functions provide a proper atmosphere in which social capital can be incubated and cultivated [3].
Social capital susceptibility is then introduced to explain the role of personal trait in the use of social media. Susceptibility, on the foundation, is how sensitively and intensely one is influenced by the level of a subject [1]. For example, susceptibility to social influence is the level of willingness to identify with one's image in the opinion of others or adapt to the expectations of others [9]. Susceptibility to health threat would be the belief on the chance that you will develop disease in your lifetime [7]. Then susceptibility to social capital can be described as the level of sensitivity to the expected acquisition of the social capital. The eagerness to obtain social capital measured through a person's reaction is viewed as one's susceptibility to the social capital.
Finally, compulsive loop is introduced to as a behavioral foundation for social media contents consumption. Compulsive behavior refers to an irresistible impulse to act regardless of the rationality of the motivation. This behavior is different from fascination because it implies the loss of control and an inability to resist an urge [4]. The concept of compulsion is repeatedly discussed in the context of online environment to explain the abnormally high level of engagement to specific types of online content consumption, such as gaming and pornography [11]. In particular, when contents are provided and updated seamlessly, a special type of loop (i.e., compulsion loop) is formed, and this loop continues and enhances the level of user engagement [5]. We introduce the concept of compulsion loop to explain the irrational, unexplainable, and high engagement of social media users.
To identify social media user types, we first combine two dimensions of social capital expectation and compulsion loop. Social capital susceptibility will be used to explain individual differences as personal trait. Then we specifically propose following arguments. 1) Those with high social capital expectation have a stronger reason to use social media. 2) Those who are more susceptible to social capital will have stronger motivation to use social media as they receive capital. 3) Those who are in compulsion loop may use social media addictively or habitually. These three characteristics are combined in a single research model to complete diverse social media usage.
By dividing social media users into specific categories, this study contributes to literature in following aspects. First, social media user types are identified from a social capital perspective. By applying a social capital view, this study translates the behavior of social media users based on the expectation for the reward from the use of social media [14]. While the majority of previous studies on the social media user categorization have focused on rather demographical criteria (e.g., gender, age, and occupation), the present study assesses social media users with a capital-based view to comprehend their usage motives (i.e., antecedents) from more incentive-based perspective and consider them as drivers of social media activities.
Second, this study provides a theoretically comprehensive framework for understanding the types of social media users. Most previous works on the types of social media users rather broadly discuss various features of related factors, such as social capital on social media without an integrative theoretical framework. By contrast, this study explains and rationalizes the matrix of the behaviors from two most fundamental purposes of social media use that are social capital generation and contents consumption. We justify how the established framework of social capital can be adequately applied in the social media context under the specifications of emotional engagement (i.e., compulsion) when consuming the contents. This theoretical ramification contributes to the literature by demonstrating how specific features of social capital on social media can be further utilized in various ways.
