Four essays on IT users' psychological states and behaviors

Abstract

This dissertation is intended to study information technology (IT) users’ psychological states and behaviors. It consists of four essays. The first essay examines how people react to social networking services (SNS). In this essay, we attempted to extend the existing model, which includes dedication- and constraint-based mechanisms, by additionally including the obligation-based mechanism underlying SNS-related behavior. The second essay is designed to investigate individuals’ smartphone use. In particular, we focused on the role of smartphone addiction in shaping individuals’ perceptions about their smartphone. The third essay is about online community behavior. Drawing on the model of engagement, we developed a conceptual model by introducing a relatively new notion of prominence. Finally, the fourth essay developed and tested a theoretical framework on Non-Work-Related Computing. Drawing on the concept of recovery, we investigated the antecedents and performance-related consequences of recovery factor.