Motivational Influences Affecting Middle-Aged and Elderly Users' Participation Intention in Health-Related Social Media

Social media provide users with multi-directional dialogue for creating and sharing health information that can effectively promote the self-management of health. In regard to the 'greying' trend in social media, most researchers have studied the health-related social media (HRSM) acceptance status and use behavior of middle-aged and elderly people, and have explored the role of HRSM in this group. However, the continuous participation of users is the key to the successful operation of HRSM, and is an essential prerequisite for the subsequent HRSM behavior habits of middle-aged and elderly people. Therefore, we aimed to explore what motivations drive the first use of HRSM among middle-aged and older adults, and the impact of their perception of HRSM, after personal use, on their intention to use it continually. In the study, we used the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) to analyze data collected from online questionnaires. The results showed that a self-protection motivation and a social motivation promoted the initial participation of middle-aged and elderly individuals. In addition, these people experienced deeper levels of perceived usefulness and perceived entertainment after their initial participation. The results also revealed that these two perceptions could positively influence middle-aged and elderly individuals' intention to continue with their participation. Our findings should help service platforms to better understand the needs of middle-aged and elderly users. This would help researchers and practitioners to gain a more complete understanding of the motivation of middle-aged and elderly people for participating in HRSM, and the related impacts this may have.

Social Media and Health: Emerging Trends and Future Directions for Research on Young Adults

The ubiquity and affordances of social media have allowed young people to become both active posters and passive recipients of communication related to health. For instance, people may post exercise goals and behaviors on social media, while at the same time, they may be exposed to friends drinking alcohol and/or indulging in unhealthy snacking. This intersection of sociotechnical systems (i.e., social media), and health and wellbeing, has garnered increasing scholarly attention. How to understand and manage the continuous use intention of health-related social media, and then provide a better service platform and create a good service model for the needs of young adults has become an important topic in the research of social media and health-related fields. Based on the SOR theory, this paper constructs a theoretical model of factors affecting the continuous use intention of health-related social media. This paper uses questionnaires and structural equation empirical research methods, relevant software to process and analyze the data, and tests the applicability of the model. The results reveal that emotional support, information support, and service quality can significantly affect pan-family consciousness, pan-family consciousness can significantly affect the continuous use intention of health-related social media. In addition, our results also show that pan-family consciousness plays a mediating role between information support and the continuous use intention of health-related social media, pan-family consciousness plays a mediating role between the service quality and the continuous use intention of health-related social media, and self-efficacy plays a mediating role between pan-family consciousness and the continuous use intention of health-related social media. These findings have important implications for research and practice in the fields of the continuous use intention of health-related social media. We hope to help with the emerging trends and future directions for research on social media and health.