Explaining the Use of Social Network Sites as Seen by Older Adults: The Enjoyment Component of a Hedonic Information System

Patricio Ramírez-Correa, Elizabeth E. Grandón, Muriel Ramírez-Santana and Leonard Belmar Órdenes
Additional contact information
Elizabeth E. Grandón: Department of Information Systems, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Muriel Ramírez-Santana: Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo 1780000, Chile
Leonard Belmar Órdenes: Department of Information Systems, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Concepción 4030000, Chile

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: Previous studies suggest that older adults are living increasingly alone and without the company of their close relatives, which cause them depression problems and a detriment to their health and general wellbeing. The use of social network sites (SNS) allows them to reduce their isolation, improve their social participation, and increase their autonomy. Although the adoption of various information technologies by older adults has been studied, some assumptions still predominate, for example, that older adults use SNS only for utilitarian purposes. However, considering SNS as hedonic information systems, and in order to extend the theoretical explanation of the intention to use hedonic systems to their actual use, this study aims to determine the influence of perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use on the use of SNS by elders in Concepción, Chile. Two hundred fifty-three older adults participated in the cross-sectional study. The results indicate that perceived ease of use is the variable that has the greatest total effect in explaining the use of SNS and that by adding the perceived enjoyment construct, the explanatory power of the model increases significantly. Therefore, advancement in user acceptance models, especially in the use of SNS by elders, can be made by focusing on the type of system, hedonic or utilitarian.

Keywords: older adults; SNS; hedonic information systems; Chile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1673/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1673/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:10:p:1673-:d:230831

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().