The pursuit of virtual happiness: Exploring the social media experience across generations

Orie Berezan, Anjala S. Krishen, Shaurya Agarwal and Pushkin Kachroo

Journal of Business Research, 2018, vol. 89, issue C, 455-461

Abstract: Social media environments can transform and reinforce life experiences, influencing self-concept and providing happiness. The goal of this research is to examine social media networking as an experiential phenomenon, wherein consumers pursue virtual happiness by satisfying the self-determination theory (SDT) needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Beginning with the memory connection to self-concept, the study proposes an experiential outcome circle for social media to virtual happiness. A circle depicts the idea that self-concept motivates social media behavior, which influences the self-concept. Happiness, or affect balance, is a potential outcome of this connection. The study analyzes n=504 social media networking participants using generational cohorts with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). This study suggests the metaphors for each generation based on the following SDT recipes: (1) “we” for generation Y with relatedness and competence, (2) “me” for generation X, with autonomy and competence, and (3) “be” for baby boomers with competence.

Keywords: Social media networking; Affect balance; Virtual happiness; Self-determination theory; Generational cohorts; FsQCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296317304848
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:89:y:2018:i:c:p:455-461

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.11.038

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().