Inward versus outward gratifications in the continuing use of social media: The moderating effects of social orientation and gender

초록

This study applies Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) to explore people's motivations in their continued use of social media. It defines the communication direction (i.e., inward or outward) in social media and develops a matrix of six motivations based on UGT and the two directions. We further examine how motivation levels vary depending on the personality and gender of users. A total of 375 datasets are collected and analyzed to test the major hypotheses. The datasets are divided into two groups (male group: 175 respondents; female group: 200 respondents) to test the gender difference. Two main findings are generated. First, social media is a news- and content-carrying outlet instead of a traditional online communication platform. Second, men exhibit more relationship-oriented motivations, whereas women display more straightforward and intuitive motivations, such as enjoyment and information acquisition. © 2016 International Information Institute.

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