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CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
Volume 15, Number 6, 2012
ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0611

Exploring the Motivations of Facebook Use in Taiwan

Saleem Alhabash, Ph.D.,1,2 Hyojung Park, Ph.D.,3 Anastasia Kononova, Ph.D.,4

Yi-hsuan Chiang, Ph.D.,5 and Kevin Wise, Ph.D. 6

Abstract

The current study explored the motivations of online social network use among a sample of the general pop-
ulation in Taiwan (N = 4,346). It investigated how seven different motivations to use Facebook predicted the
intensity of Facebook use and content-generation behaviors on Facebook. Results showed that the motivation to
use Facebook for posting and viewing status updates was the strongest predictor of Facebook intensity, while
the motivation to view and share photographs was the strongest predictor of content-generation behavior on the
site. Results are discussed in terms of expanding motivations to use Facebook to the study of social networking
sites and other new and social media.

Introduction Defining SNSs

S ince its establishment in 2004, Facebook’s growth has

flourished globally. There are over 845 million Facebook
users, half of whom visit the site multiple times per day. Every
month, Facebook users collectively spend over 700 billion
minutes on the site, interact with over 900 billion pieces of
content, share 30 billion pieces of content, and view about 7.5
billion photos. Within a few years, Facebook went from a Web
site exclusive to U.S. college students to the second most
visited Web site in the world, with 80 percent of current users
residing outside the United States.1,2 Most notably, a quarter
of all users are in Asia. Indonesia is second after the United
States in terms of the number of users. In addition, with social
networking sites (SNSs) being used by more than 75 percent
of the population in Taiwan, Facebook ranks first in terms of
use frequency, bypassing homegrown SNSs.3–5
Despite the fact that the majority of Facebook users come
from countries other than the United States, the extreme
majority of Facebook research is U.S. centric. Therefore, it
becomes important to explore this social phenomenon in
other countries and cultures. The current study surveyed a
sample of Taiwanese Facebook users (N = 4,346) to explore
the site’s motivations and uses. More specifically, the study
investigated the relationships among motivations to use
Facebook, Facebook intensity, and self-reported content-
generation behavior on the site.
While Facebook creators define it as a ‘‘social utility that
helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends,
family and coworkers,’’1 boyd and Ellison6(p211) define SNSs
as web-based services that allow individuals to (a) construct a
public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, (b)
articulate a list of other users with whom they share a con-
nection, and (c) traverse their list of connections and those
made by others within the system.
Beer7 critiques this definition by stating that it is far too
broad and aggregates web applications that might be struc-
turally different into one category. This argument reflects the
difficulty in coming up with conceptual definitions of social
phenomena that are tied to ever-changing technologies.
Looking specifically at Facebook, the Web site is constantly
updating its design, adding new features, and creating new
applications.1,8,9
Facebook’s growing popularity is matched with the site’s
plight for constant change and updating. Past research indi-
cated that Facebook users are motivated by the need to
maintain their offline relationships with friends, family, and
acquaintances in an online setting.10–16 This begs the question
as to whether changes in the site’s design and function mirror
changing motivations to use Facebook. The current study
explored whether the motivations to use Facebook, different
uses of the site, and the relationships between motivations

Departments of 1Advertising, Public Relations, and Retailing and 2Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State
University, East Lansing, Michigan.
3
Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
4
College of Arts and Sciences, American University of Kuwait, Safat, Kuwait.
5
Department of Radio, Television and Film, Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan.
6
School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.

304
FACEBOOK IN TAIWAN 305

and uses are different in other countries; in this case, Taiwan.
To understand such relationships, the following section re-
views the uses and gratifications (U&G) approach as the
theoretical framework for the current study.
U&G of SNSs
U&G redefined the way researchers evaluate how and why
people use media. Unlike previous theories of direct and
powerful media effects that regarded media users as passive,
U&G posits that audience members are active and goal-
oriented consumers of media. They are active in terms of
selecting media channels and messages based on their moti-
vation to satisfy different needs.17,18 This has been criticized
with arguments that audiences differ in terms of both their
needs and the means by which they are gratified, as well as
the challenge of assuming that the active nature of the audi-
ence is not subjected to distinction based on media fea-
tures.19–24 The Internet, and what it provides for acquiring
and sharing information, arguably reconciled this argument.
Researchers contended that computer-mediated communi-
cation makes it impossible for users to be passive.23,25–28
Raacke and Bonds-Raacke15 applied the U&G approach to
studying Facebook use. They described Facebook from a
friend-networking perspective, and argued that since users
have considerable control in making decisions regarding
whom to involve, follow, and communicate with in their net-
work of Facebook friends, then U&G is applicable, especially
with shifting focus from the message and channel to the user.
Recent studies attempting to explore the motivations to use
SNSs applied measures of Internet-use motivations.15,29–33
While these studies illustrated that motivations of informa-
tion, entertainment, diversion, surveillance, social utility,
narcissism, self-expression, media drenching, and aesthetic
experience, among others, are applicable to the study of
SNSs, we argue that using SNSs is a qualitatively different
experience from the generic use of the Internet; thus, a dif-
ferent set of motivations specific to these new media is
needed. For example, past research found that Facebook
users are primarily motivated to use the site to maintain
offline relationships.10,15 The current study considered se-
ven different motivations for using Facebook: social con-
nection, shared identities (creating/joining groups and
events), photographs (viewing/sharing), content (applica-
tions, games, etc.), social investigation, social network
surfing, and status updates.34
The major premise of U&G deals with the assumption that
motivations to use media are good predictors of an individ-
ual’s media-use behavior, including the choice of medium
and amount of time spent using it.17–24 Sheldon found that
motivations to use Facebook (i.e., relationship maintenance,
passing time, participation in a virtual community, enter-
tainment, coolness, and companionship) predicted a partici-
pant’s use of the site.29,30 The current study focused on two
patterns of Facebook use: Facebook intensity and content-
generation behavior. The intensity to use Facebook combines
use measures alongside affective and cognitive attitudes to-
ward the site.35 Alhabash and colleagues36 found that five

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Factor Loadings for Facebook Motivations

Mean Eigenvalue
Motivation Measurement item (SD) Loading (variance percent)

Social connection Maintaining relationships with people 4.54 (1.57) 0.94

Connecting with people you otherwise 4.44 (1.55) 0.94
would have lost contact with
Reconnecting with people 4.52 (1.58) 0.94 5.87
Contacting friends who are away from home 4.53 (1.57) 0.93 (83.91)
Finding people you haven’t seen for a while 4.45 (1.57) 0.92 a = 0.97
Finding out what old friends are doing now 4.55 (1.54) 0.90
Receiving a friend request 4.21 (1.50) 0.84
Shared identities Joining groups 3.59 (1.60) 0.93 2.44
Organizing or joining events 3.82 (1.59) 0.93 (81.22)
Communication with likeminded people 3.91 (1.53) 0.83 a = 0.88
Photographs Being tagged in photos 3.72 (1.60) 0.95
Tagging photos 3.66 (1.58) 0.95 3.48
Sharing/posting photographs 3.94 (1.61) 0.93 (86.89)
Viewing photos 4.22 (1.53) 0.89 a = 0.95
Content Applications within Facebook 3.90 (1.56) 0.92 2.50
Quizzes 3.72 (1.63) 0.92 (83.22)
Playing games 4.11 (1.69) 0.90 a = 0.90
Social investigation Using advanced search to look for people 3.85 (1.53) 0.94
Meeting new people 3.88 (1.55) 0.92 3.36
Virtual people watching 4.03 (1.53) 0.91 (84.00)
Stalking other people 3.85 (1.58) 0.90 a = 0.94
Social network surfing Viewing other people’s friends 3.71 (1.57) 0.97 2.70
Looking at the profiles of people 3.56 (1.59) 0.94 (90.00)
Browsing your friends’ friends 3.95 (1.54) 0.94 a = 0.94
Status updates The news feed 4.16 (1.57) 0.97 2.72
Seeing what people have put as their status 4.24 (1.55) 0.95 (90.73)
Updating your own status 4.10 (1.56) 0.94 a = 0.95
306 ALHABASH ET AL.

Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Factor Loadings for Facebook Use Measures

Mean Eigenvalue
Variable Measurement item (SD) Loading (variance percent)

Facebook intensity Feeling part of the Facebook community 3.82 (1.60) 0.90
Considering Facebook a part of my everyday activity 3.92 (1.79) 0.89
Feeling out of touch when not logging onto Facebook 3.21 (1.69) 0.86 4.23
Feeling sorry if Facebook shuts down 3.30 (1.81) 0.83 (60.39)
Proud to tell people I’m on Facebook 4.40 (1.71) 0.81 a = 0.88
The number of friends 3.45 (2.17) 0.53
The amount of time spent on Facebook 3.09 (1.71) 0.51
Facebook content Posting criticisms, rants, and raves 3.52 (1.64) 0.92
generation Posting my achievements in school or work 3.24 (1.61) 0.90
Posting abstract ideas 3.49 (1.65) 0.90
Announcing breaking news as fast as getting them 3.35 (1.64) 0.90
to be the first person to say it
Telling every single detail of my daily life 3.18 (1.61) 0.90
Posting my feelings of sadness and anger 3.22 (1.66) 0.89 9.22
Posting my feelings of happiness and joy 3.80 (1.70) 0.89 (76.80)
Posting invitations to support causes 3.36 (1.63) 0.89 a = 0.97
Posting personal details of my life 3.06 (1.64) 0.88
Posting links to interesting news stories 3.78 (1.68) 0.85
Reposting other people’s status updates 4.11 (1.68) 0.81
Posting results of games or quizzes 3.58 (1.68) 0.79

motivations to use Facebook (social connection, status up-
dates, social investigation, photographs, and content) signif-
icantly and positively predicted Facebook intensity. With
limited research using a Taiwanese sample, we proposed the
following research questions.
RQ1.1: Which, if any, of the seven different motivations to
use Facebook is the strongest predictor of the intensity to
use Facebook?
RQ1.2: How do motivations to use Facebook predict the
intensity to use Facebook?
The second type of Facebook use is specific to content-
generation behavior, considering the fact that users share
over 30 billion pieces of content (status updates, links, videos,
and pictures) every month.1 The current study explored how
different motivations to use Facebook predicted participants’
content-generation behavior on the site. Therefore, we asked
the following questions.
RQ2.1: Which, if any, of the motivations to use Facebook
is the strongest predictor of content-generation behavior?
RQ2.2: How do motivations to use Facebook predict
content-generation behavior on Facebook?
Method
Survey design, sampling, and participants
The current study utilized a survey of Taiwanese Internet
users that was administered between November 9 and 20,
2010, through a Taiwan-based online survey system owned

FIG. 2. Estimated percentage of Facebook friends they

FIG. 1. Self-reported time spent on Facebook. daily interact with offline.
FACEBOOK IN TAIWAN 307

by InsightXplorer, a marketing firm in Taipei, Taiwan. The

survey was designed in English and administered in Man-
darin after several rounds of translation and back-translation.
A total of 7,964 respondents from the online panel of 8,000
participants took part in the study (99.6 percent response
rate). However, the sample size included in the analyses was
dropped to 4,346 responses due to the following reasons: 654
respondents reported not having a Facebook account and
were discarded, 1,086 respondents were discarded for having
missing values on more than one variable, and 878 respon-
dents were removed as a result of a multivariate outlier
analysis using Mahalanobis distance for each measure.
Participants (N = 4,346) were Taiwanese nationals with a
mean age of about 30 years old (SD = 9.71). The majority of
the sample was women (58.7 percent). Nearly one-third of
the sample (30.1 percent) reported being married. The ma-
jority of participants (67 percent) reported having a college FIG. 3. Primary uses of Facebook.
degree.

Measures
as independent variables in the model. Prior to testing the
The current study used a 27-item scale to measure the
proposed models, Pearson’s bivariate correlations among the
seven different motivations for using Facebook: social con-
independent and dependent variables were examined to
nection, shared identities, photographs, contents, social in-
justify the use of regression analysis. Facebook-use intensity
vestigation, social network surfing, and status updates (see
and content generation were significantly correlated with all
Table 1).34 The intensity to use Facebook was measured using
of the motivation variables, and the coefficients ranged from
two categorical questions (number of friends and daily time
0.63 to 0.86 (see Table 3). There were also significant corre-
spent on Facebook) and five affective and cognitive state-
lations among the seven motivations. Accordingly, a stepwise
ments (see Table 2).35 The other use measure dealt with
regression method was employed to determine the best set of
content-generation behavior. We developed 12 items to
predictors for the Facebook usage variables. The risk of
measure content-generation behavior on Facebook. All scale
multicollinearity was also assessed using the tolerance and
items were rated on a seven-point scale anchored by
the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) in the following regression
‘‘strongly disagree’’ and ‘‘strongly agree.’’
analyses.
A stepwise regression analysis was conducted to explore
Results
which of the motivations to use Facebook are the strongest,
Descriptive results most significant predictors of Facebook-use intensity (RQ1.1)
as well as how the other motivations predict the intensity to
The majority of the sample (74.6 percent) reported having
use Facebook (RQ1.2). At each step of stepwise regression, the
150 or less friends on Facebook, leaving only a quarter of the
most significant predictor is added to the model until none of
sample (25.4 percent) with more than 150 Facebook friends.
the independent variables left out of the model would have a
Nearly two-thirds of the sample (78.4 percent) reported
significant contribution if they had entered into the model.37
spending less than one hour daily on Facebook (see Fig. 1).
As a result of the regression analysis, social investigation and
The majority of the sample (63.7 percent) estimated that 30
percent or less of their Facebook friends are people whom
they are in daily contact with (see Fig. 2). Finally, the ma-
jority of participants (89.4 percent) reported that they use
Facebook for personal reasons, as opposed to using it for
business purposes only (1.7 percent) and for both personal
and business purposes (8.9 percent; see Fig. 3). Results also
showed that the highest rated motivation to use Facebook
was to maintain social connection (M = 4.46, SD = 1.42), fol-
lowed by the motivation to use Facebook to update one’s
status and view other people’s status updates (M = 4.17,
SD = 1.49), and using Facebook for the content it provides
(M = 3.91, SD = 1.48). All of the other four motivations were
above the rating scale’s mid-point and were somewhat
similar (see Fig. 4).

Motivations predicting intensity of Facebook use

Two 7-predictor multiple linear models were proposed to
explain the intensity of Facebook use and content generation
on Facebook. The seven motivations to use Facebook served FIG. 4. Mean scores for seven motivations to use Facebook.
308 ALHABASH ET AL.

Table 3. Pearson’s Bivariate Correlations Among Variables

Facebook Facebook content Social Shared Social Social network

intensity generation connection identities Photos Content investigation surfing

Facebook content 0.75**

generation
Social connection 0.73** 0.69**
Shared identities 0.69** 0.75** 0.73**
Photos 0.71** 0.79** 0.75** 0.76**
Content 0.67** 0.72** 0.67** 0.72** 0.76**
Social investigation 0.70** 0.78** 0.74** 0.78** 0.79** 0.74**
Social network surfing 0.63** 0.74** 0.65** 0.72** 0.76** 0.71** 0.86**
Status updates 0.73** 0.78** 0.79** 0.73** 0.81** 0.74** 0.84** 0.80**

**p < 0.01.

social network surfing were dropped from the model, and stepwise method used, all motivation variables except for
five predictors were found to be significant at the critical level social connection appeared to be significant predictors for
of 0.05 (see Table 4). content generation on Facebook (see Table 6). The motivation
The first predictor to be entered into the model was status to post or view photographs made the highest degree of
updates, accounting for 54 percent (R2) of the variance. At the contribution in explaining content generation (R2 = 0.62), and
second step, social connection significantly added 6.0 percent it was added first to the model. Social investigation was
to the explained variance. Shared identities, content, and subsequently entered into the model with an R2 increment of
photos were subsequently added to the model, increasing 6.8 percent. Shared identities made the third highest contri-
slightly but significantly the amount of the variance ex- bution (1.8 percent) followed by status updates and content,
plained (2.2 percent, 1.0 percent, and 0.4 percent, respec- which significantly added 1.5 percent and 0.3 percent, re-
tively). The final regression model with these five predictors spectively, to the explained variance. Social network surfing
yielded an F-ratio of 1498.46 ( p < 0.001) and explained 63.3 was entered last to the model, increasing the explained var-
percent of the variance in the intensity of Facebook use. In this iance by 0.1 percent.
model, social connection (b = 0.27) appeared to be the stron- The final model accounted for 72.0 percent of the variance
gest predictor for Facebook intensity, followed by status in content generation [F(6, 4339) = 1860.94, p < 0.001]. As in the
updates (b = 0.22) and shared identities (b = 0.15) (see Table 5). stepwise procedures, the photograph variable (b = 0.24) was
Subsequently, the posting or viewing of photographs found to be the most significant predictor in explaining
(b = 0.13) appeared to positively influence Facebook intensity. content-generation behaviors of Facebook users (see Table 7).
The lowest coefficient was relevant to Facebook content Subsequently, status updates (b = 0.22), shared identities
(b = 0.11). The collinearity statistics showed that none of the (b = 0.20), and social investigation (b = 0.15) appeared to
five predictors had a tolerance value smaller than 0.10 and positively influence content generation on Facebook. The use
VIF greater than 10, suggesting no serious multicollinearity in of Facebook content (b = 0.09) and social network surfing
the model. (b = 0.05) had relatively small influences but appeared to be
significant, positive predictors of content generation in the
Motivations predicting Facebook content generation model.
Another regression analysis was performed to examine
Discussion
which Facebook motivation would be the strongest predictor
of Facebook content-generation behavior (RQ2.1) as well as The current study utilized the U&G approach to explore
the relationships between the motivations to use Facebook the motivations and uses of Facebook among a large sample
and the generation of Facebook content (RQ2.2). Based on the from Taiwan. A set of interesting findings is reflected in the
descriptive results of the current sample. First, compared
with student samples from the United States,10,35,36 the Tai-
Table 4. Stepwise Regression Analysis for wanese sample reported a lower number of Facebook friends.
Predicting the Intensity of Facebook Use This might be influenced by the fact that we recruited a
Model R2 2
R2 change F change p Value sample of the general population, as well as due to plausible
adjR
cultural differences with regards to the size of individuals’
ST 0.54 0.54 0.54 5072.37 < 0.001 online networks of friends. In addition, contradictory to
ST + SC 0.60 0.60 0.06 650.21 < 0.001 previous studies in the United States arguing that Facebook is
ST + SC + SID 0.62 0.62 0.02 254.89 < 0.001 primarily used to maintain offline relationship in an online
ST + SC + 0.63 0.63 0.01 95.00 < 0.001 setting,10–16 the majority of respondents estimated that less
SID + CT than a third of their Facebook friends are people they interact
ST + SC + 0.63 0.63 < 0.01 48.43 < 0.001 with in the offline world.
SID + CT + PHT
The second set of findings deals with the relationship be-
ST, status updates; SC, social connection; SID, shared identities; tween Facebook motivations and Facebook intensity. In line
CT, content; PHT, photographs. with previous theorizing on SNSs and their unique
FACEBOOK IN TAIWAN 309

Table 5. Regression Coefficients of Predictors Table 7. Regression Coefficients of Predictors

for the Intensity of Facebook Use for the Generation of Facebook Content

p Variable B SE b t p Value Tolerance VIF

Variable B SE b t Value Tolerance VIF
Photographs 0.24 0.02 0.24 14.70 < 0.001 0.25 4.00
Status updates 0.22 0.01 0.22 12.02 < 0.001 0.25 3.97 Social 0.15 0.02 0.15 7.54 < 0.001 0.17 5.88
Social connection 0.27 0.02 0.27 16.80 < 0.001 0.32 3.10 investigation
Shared identities 0.15 0.02 0.15 9.62 < 0.001 0.33 3.02 Shared identities 0.20 0.01 0.20 13.66 < 0.001 0.31 3.18
Content 0.11 0.02 0.11 7.32 < 0.001 0.35 2.86 Status updates 0.22 0.02 0.22 13.09 < 0.001 0.23 4.42
Photographs 0.13 0.02 0.13 6.96 < 0.001 0.25 4.00 Content 0.09 0.01 0.09 6.57 < 0.001 0.34 2.93
Social network 0.05 0.02 0.05 2.85 0.004 0.23 4.34
SE, Standard Error; VIF, variance inflation factor. surfing

advantage of facilitating social connectivity,38,39 our findings guided our study, we argue that a reassessment of the op-
show that the highest rated motivation to use Facebook was erationalization of both the motivations and uses of SNSs is
social connection. This serves to illustrate the universal utility needed, especially considering our results that the motiva-
of SNSs and how they evolve within different cultures. tions to use Facebook predicted two types of the site’s usage
However, it was the motivation to use Facebook for status differently. This is of great importance to the study of online
updates that was the strongest predictor of Facebook inten- social networking behavior, as it calls for the need to dissect
sity, a trend that is different from what was found in studies the different functions of SNSs. Moreover, our findings
of American college students.36 Whereas past studies of suggest differences among Facebook users that might be
American college student samples showed that the motiva- reflective of the culture to which they belong. This is prev-
tions to use Facebook for shared identities and content fea- alent in the qualitative comparison between the motivations
tures did not significantly predict Facebook intensity,36 our and uses of Facebook among Taiwanese and American re-
findings show otherwise. spondents. With the growth of academic scholarship on
The third set of findings deals with the relationship be- SNSs, there is a need to address cross-cultural differences in
tween the motivations to use Facebook and participants’ how and why individuals use SNSs. These findings con-
content-generation behavior on the site. The most intriguing tribute to expanding approaches like U&G globally, there-
finding is that the motivations to use Facebook predict fore, empirically testing the universality of this theoretical
content-generation behavior in a different way compared to approach as a means to advancing the field of research on
predicting Facebook intensity. The strongest predictor of SNSs.
content generation was the motivation to view and share
photographs, whereas status updates was the strongest pre- Limitations and Future Research
dictor of Facebook intensity. In addition, while the motiva- The current study has a few limitations that are worth
tion to use Facebook for social connectivity was the second
noting. First, our sample, although providing a large cross-
strongest predictor of Facebook intensity, it was the weakest
section of the Taiwanese general population, is part of a
predictor of content-generation behavior on the site. This il- panel for a marketing firm, thus limiting the generaliz-
lustrates that different aspects of using Facebook serve to
ability of our results to the whole population. Second, since
gratify a different set of needs for the site’s users.
all measures were developed in a Western cultural context,
In general, the study’s findings call for the need to re- it is possible that certain contextual interpretations on the
evaluate the ways scholars think about new media. The way participants’ end were different from what we have in-
the technology has advanced in the past two decades should
tended to measure. Third, the current study was limited to
drive researchers to think beyond the widely accepted, yet Taiwan; thus, generalizing to the larger Asian population
not so relevant, theoretical boxes. While the U&G approach and comparison with the Unites States and other countries
may not be possible. Future studies should explore Face-
book motivations and uses using a random sample of the
Table 6. Stepwise Regression Analysis for population, guard against culture-specific interpretations,
Predicting the Generation of Facebook Content extend the research to other Asian countries, and explore
motivations and uses of different SNSs (i.e., Twitter, Plurk,
Model R2 adjR
2
R2 change F change p Value etc.).
PHT 0.62 0.62 0.62 6,979.22 < 0.001 Conclusions
PHT + SI 0.68 0.68 0.07 932.84 < 0.001
PHT + SI + SID 0.70 0.70 0.02 258.79 < 0.001 The current study explored how motivations to use Face-
PHT + SI + 0.72 0.72 0.02 224.80 < 0.001 book predicted use intensity and content-generation behavior
SID + ST using a large sample from Taiwan. Using new oper-
PHT + SI + 0.72 0.72 < 0.01 46.31 < 0.001 ationalizations of media U&G, the study illustrated that dif-
SID + ST + CT
ferent patterns of use are predicted by a different set of
PHT + SI + SID + 0.72 0.72 < 0.01 8.10 < 0.001
ST + CT + SN motivations to use Facebook. The study advances the U&G
approach to the specificity of online social networking
SI, social investigation; SN, social network surfing. behavior.
310
Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
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