On the Relationship between Online Social Support and Users' ontinuance Intention

Abstract

This chapter discusses the online social support in the context of social networking sites (SNSs). The pervasive adoption of social networking sites has profound influence on society and enables a new way to provide social support. Social support has been considered a key social value that online users can obtain from social networking sites. Research has shown that social support may reduce stress and promote well-being among diverse populations. Despite its significance to society, the online social support in the context of SNSs has been surprisingly under-investigated. Some fundamental questions—such as (1) What are the dimensions of online social support on SNSs? and (2) How does online social support influence other factors such as the users' satisfaction and continuance intention to SNSs?—have not been answered. This chapter attempts to answer those questions. Specifically, this chapter aims to first identify the definitional dimensions of online social support on SNSs through an extensive review of the literature. Second, this chapter uses these dimensions to model online social support and test its effects on other SNS factors: user satisfaction and continuance intention. Eventually, the results support all proposed hypotheses. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the results are discussed at the end of this chapter. 1