Encouraging Continuous Usage of Wearable Activity Trackers: The Interplay of Perceived Severity, Susceptibility and Social Media Influencers

Anita Lennox (), Re-an Müller and Isaac Sewornu Coffie ()
Additional contact information
Anita Lennox: School of Management Sciences, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark Campus, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa
Re-an Müller: School of Management Sciences, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark Campus, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa
Isaac Sewornu Coffie: School of Management Sciences, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark Campus, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: While past studies have provided enough evidence to show consumer attitude as a key predictor of the adoption and continuous usage intention of wearable activity trackers (WATs), limited studies have examined the antecedents of consumers’ attitudes towards the adoption and continuous usage intention of WATs. Drawing on the health belief model and cue utilization theory, the study seeks to examine the influence of perceived severity and vulnerability as antecedents of consumers’ attitudes towards the adoption and continuous usage intention of WATs as well as the role of social media influencers (SMIs) in influencing continuous usage of WATs. Online survey data from 966 participants (M age = 40.79, STD = 13.49) was analyzed using SPSS 29and AMOS version 29. The result shows that though perceived severity and susceptibility are key significant predictors of consumers’ attitudes towards WATs, the relationship is stronger when SMIs’ personas are used as extrinsic cues. Additionally, while perceived barriers negatively affect consumers’ attitudes towards WATs, the negative effect is neutralized through SMIs’ message framing as an extrinsic cue. Theoretically, the study provides a new insight into the interplay of perceived severity, susceptibility, SMIs’ personas, and message framing on consumers’ attitudes towards the adoption and continuous usage intention of WATs.

Keywords: wearable activity trackers; smart fitness; consumer attitude; social media influencers; health belief model; cue utilization theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/12/1549/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/12/1549/ (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:21:y:2024:i:12:p:1549-:d:1527173

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 ().