Theorizing Social Media Usage Behaviour

Abstract

The lack of an integrative theoretical framework pushed most of the research on social media

into cyclical form. This paper reviewed theories such as uses and gratifications theory, social

skills hypothesis and social capital hypothesis, as these theories previously guided social

media research. In addition, this paper examined theories such as IPACE model, supernormal

stimuli, behavioural economics, social brain hypothesis and psychological persuasion, which

can provide new perspective in understanding social media behaviour. Finally, this paper

discussed the impetus for empirical research to test the validity of these theories.

Keywords: social media, uses and gratifications, supernormal stimuli, behavioural

economics, social brain hypothesis and psychological persuasion.

1. Introduction

The ubiquity of social media and its pervasive use by the public garnered the attention of

academia. From the outset, the researchers focused on what drives and motivates social

media use, and the research has found out that social media is used mainly to maintain

relationships, check what is going on in others’ lives and escape from one's worries. Later on,

the gaze was shifted to how the high engagement in social media has become debilitating. In

due course, social media use is implicated in various phenomena like anxiety (Brailovskaia &

Margraf, 2017; Shaw et al. 2015), depression (Błachnio et al., 2015; Appel et al., 2016), and

decreased wellbeing (Satici & Uysal., 2015; Uysal et al., 2013).

This causal stance regarding social media is identical to the questions posed against

the addictive use of emergent technologies in previous times. The research on social media is

replete with methodological biases and a lack of an integrative theoretical framework (Orben,

2020). There is no overarching theoretical framework that explains user’s behaviour in social

media. An integrative general theoretical framework enables researchers to infer predictions

from general premises. The results do not hold any implications if they are not driven by a

general theory (Muthukrishna & Henrich, 2019), which is the predicament of the

accumulated results of social media research.

Amy Orben (2020) observed that when researchers try to investigate the nature of

new technology without an integrative theory, they habitually pose questions the same as

previous researchers in understanding older technologies. This cyclical nature of research can

be mitigated by developing better theoretical approaches, which would include research

inferences from older technologies.

Realising such a gap in the literature, this paper embarks on different theoretical

perspectives that will interpret the user's behaviours regarding social media in a new light.

The first part of the paper enumerates the theories which were instrumental in guiding
previous empirical research. The second part of the paper enlists new theories which can

explain user’s behaviour.

The theories which have guided previous research attempted to explain themes such as

personal, social level motivations.

1.1. Uses and gratifications theory

The Uses and Gratification theory by Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch (1974) is grounded

on the assumption that people select media and content to satisfy psychological, social needs

and wants. In this theory, Katz et al. (1974) identified five significant needs: (1) personal

integrative needs (enhance credibility, status), (2) affective needs (emotion, pleasure,

feelings), (3) cognitive needs (acquire information, knowledge), (4) tension release needs

(escape & diversion) and (5) social integrative needs (interact with family & friends).

Similarly, the Dual Factor Model of Facebook Use proposed by Hofmann and Nadkarni

(2013) explained the two motivational factors that drive an individual to use Facebook as a

specific type of social networking site: (1) the need to belong, which refers to the innate drive

to affiliate with others and gain social acceptance and (2) the need for self-presentation,

which relates to the continuous process of impression management (Hofmann & Nadkarni,

2013).

Individuals enjoy social media features that cater to their characteristics and are

gratified by using them (Ryan et al., 2014). Uses and gratifications theory suggests that

illustrating factors responsible for media use can illuminate its popularity (Katz, Blumler &

Gurevitch, 1973). Research has provided the typology of users based on uses and

gratification theory which are: Relationship maintenance (bringing the offline social network

to be online); Entertainment (engaging in passive social activities); Companionship (using

Facebook to avoid loneliness and improve interpersonal needs); Surveillance gratifications

(glancing photographs and status updates); Escape (engaging in Facebook to escape from

worries and problems and altering mood) (Ryan et al., 2014).

1.2. Social Skills hypothesis

The social compensation hypothesis suggests that individuals lacking skills in

developing friends are likely to use social media to increase their online social network.

The social enhancement hypothesis observes that individuals engage in social media to

further increase their social circle (Valkenburg et al., 2005; Valkenburg and Peter (2007). The

displacement hypothesis ponders that those users who spend more time on social media will

have reduced wellbeing as they devote less time to actual social interaction. The stimulation

effect hypothesizes a condition where individuals will have experienced high well-being

because of spending more time on social media, increasing the quality of relationships

(Valkenburg & Peter, 2007).

Social enhancement and social compensation hypotheses have helped to understand

the varied behaviour of different subtypes of users. The extraverted may use Facebook to

expand their social circle; neurotic people use Facebook to enhance mood. The lonely and

introverted individuals use Facebook to find friends, which they find hard to find in offline

settings. Narcissists exploit the Facebook features to gain more attention to satisfy their

grandiosity (Zywica & Danowski, 2008) & (Chen, 2014).

1.3. Technological Acceptance Model (TAM)

The technological acceptance model explains and predicts users’ attitudes which

influence the adoption of a specific technology or service (Davis, 1989). TAM has been

especially useful in studying the reception of social media technologies. According to TAM,

perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), attitude (ATT), and intention to

use (IU) are the central tenets that govern the adoption of a technology (Davis, 1989). PEOU

and PU explain the extent to which individuals believe that using technology may improve
their performance and reduces physical and mental effort. User attitudes and user intention to

use specific technology or devices are influenced by PEOU and PU of that particular

technology (Davis, 1989; Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw, 1989). Previous research vindicated

the capacity of the TAM to predict consumer adoption of novel technologies. Research has

validated the attitude intent behaviour relationship in the context of Facebook usage. The

utility aspect of perceived usefulness and intention to use could explain social media

behaviour (Rauniar et al., 2014).

1.4. Social capital

Social media enables one to capitalize on social ties by interacting and disclosing

information about oneself and expecting others to do the same, and disclosing one’s

information through status updates, photos and other kinds of information representing their

identity. Interacting by responding to others posts facilitate relationship growth. Liking others

posts and giving comments is a virtue signal to improve relationships with friendships and

acquaintances (Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe, 2014). It has been empirically proven that

social media helped to create and maintain social capital (Johnston et al., 2013 & Steinfield et

al., 2008).

The following section describes the theoretical models which can add a new perspective in

understanding social media users' behaviour.

2. An Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) Model

I-PACE model was developed to understand how psychological and neurobiological

processes underlie the development and maintenance of addictive use of social media (Brand
et al., 2019). Interaction between individuals predisposing factors and specific situations may

result in experiences of gratification, which evoke certain behaviours. These situations often

provide external and internal triggers that individuals perceive and assimilate. These

perceptions may converge into affective and cognitive responses such as heightened attention

to stimuli and craving behaviours. These cognitive and affective responses influence

individuals to behave in a specific way guided by two interactive systems. 1) An impulsive/

reactive system which is built upon associative learning, 2) A reflective/ deliberative system,

which employs reasoning and executive functions. Considering its holistic theoretical

framework, if it is operationalized to test its empirical validity, the I-PACE model can

address some aspects of users behaviour on social media.

2.1. Supernormal stimuli are the amplified stimuli; if presented, animal reactions are more

exaggerated than normal stimuli. The preference for the amplified stimuli has been

understood as an adaptive response. The supernormal stimulus hijacks the standard response

and drives the animal to give a supernormal response (Barrett, 2010). Though underlying

mechanisms remain constant, the response is altered by introducing some novel stimulus that

surpasses all naturally occurring stimuli in domains related to selection (ward, 2013).

The concept of supernormal stimuli has been applied to understand several human

behaviours. Humans encounter supernormal stimuli in various ways as part of day-to-day life

activities. The process of reacting to these supernormal stimuli can lead to dopamine

desensitization, in which individual needs more and more stimuli to elicit a response. This

vicious cycle culminates in addictive behaviour. Social media is a space where supernormal

stimuli are presented to users. One's photos can be edited and beautified to look good. These

photos are liked and appreciated in comments made by others which may bolster the

individual’s self-esteem. Social media users post different types of images to different
platforms based on their functionality. The images shared on social media imply the value

users imbue to relationships such as friendships, family, and romantic relationships. (Keep,

Janssen & Amon, 2019).

Through the framework of supernormal stimuli, probably, the political polarization

in social media can also be understood. When an individual expresses a specific opinion, it is

naturally endorsed by like-minded people in echo chambers. It is easy to find individuals

from the "us" category on social media platforms and comment something on "them". These

possibilities have less likelihood in the offline environment, but it reaches a new level in the

social media realm. Individuals react to these supernormal stimuli, making them spend a

considerable amount of time on social media.

2.2. Behavioural economics

Affective forecasting explains that individuals systematically commit errors in

predicting whether future events will bring pleasure or displeasure. People often show poor

performance in predicting the intensity and duration of their future emotional reactions.

People tend to overestimate the duration of one’s future emotional reaction, which is called

durability bias. Also, people tend to overestimate the enduring impact of future events on our

emotional reactions, known as impact bias. (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005); (Wilson & Gilbert,

2003).

These biases may play a role in users' social media behaviours, especially when

uploading photos and statuses. The aim of uploading photos often correlates with their

expectations from others in the form of likes and comments, and users might overestimate the

duration and impact of this approval from others in social media. Research evidence

suggested that affective forecasting error might explain the condition where users continue to
use social media despite imbuing little meaning to the activity and experience mood declines

(Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014).

'Experiencing self' denotes the subjective experience of living. "Remembering self"

connotes the satisfaction level of our life when we contemplate it. People give much

importance to life satisfaction in retrospection (Kahneman & Riis, 2005). We reminisce about

life through memories, which adds to life satisfaction, may translates into yearning to freeze

our experiencing moments by taking photographs. Social media has become a shared space

where we upload our photographs to talk about ourselves. Particularly the feature like

updating profile picture appeals to this need. The corporeal aspects of experiencing do not

seem to sustain, so the photos that capture the experiencing self are fed into remembering

self, which boosts life satisfaction, which might be why billions of users upload their photos

and feel good about how many liked them the photos and given comments.

2.3. Social brain hypothesis

The upper limit of social networks is the result of both cognitive constraint and time

constraint. The size of social groups systematically correlates with the size of the neocortex.

Which implicate the cognitive limit on the size of natural face to face networks. In time

constraint, individuals are bound to choose between exercising time or emotional capital

richly among a small circle of close friends or thinly among a large number (Dunbar et al.,

2015).

As suggested by the social brain hypothesis, offline social networks are limited. The

width and magnitude of online social networks presented by social media are endless.

Researchers have tried to investigate the size of offline social networks and online social

networks. Interestingly, researchers found that sizes of online and offline social networks

remained the same, typically about 150 altars. Individuals can have as many friends on social
media, but the time, interactive pattern, and amount of time spent are typically similar to

offline social networking behaviour.

2.4. Sociometer

Sociometer describes the inner mental gauge that narrates how we are doing through the eyes

of others (Leary, 2005). Evolutionary adaptation made us display virtue signalling to consider

us as desirable partners for various kinds of relationships. Social media, with its different

features such as likes, friends, followers and retweets, enable us to express sociometer of our

thoughts and actions. The other users in social media in the form of the audience can interact,

like, comment on individuals’ respective opinions. This kind of virtue signalling through

sociometer boosts one's morale of status (Haidt & Stockwell, 2019).

2.5. Psychological Persuasion:

Persuasion is an active attempt to change another person's attitudes, beliefs, or

emotions associated with some issue, person, concept, or object. Persuading users through

customizing social media features that cater to individuals’ unique psychological

characteristics and motivations may influence their actual behaviour and choices is called

psychological persuasion. The efficacy of psychological targeting or persuasion depends on

harvesting and analysing psychological profiles based on people’s digital footprints (in the

form of machine learning predictions from a user’s behavioural history or single target likes).

Psychological persuasion can be helpful in making better decisions as well as can be used to

exploit the weakness of individuals (Matz et al., 2017).

Though psychological science held a view that individuals can be easily pursued, but

the evidence suggests otherwise. Individuals are endowed with epistemic vigilance, which is
efficient in evaluating communicated and linguistic information. Individuals check the

plausibility and trustworthiness of the message and its source, exercise the veracity of the

arguments supporting the message. Most persuading messages are largely unsuccessful

because the efficiency of epistemic vigilance makes individuals rely upon sensible cues and

reject most misleading messages (Mercier, 2017).

3. Conclusion

This study tried to understand and adopted explanatory frameworks from varied theoretical

approaches such as supernormal stimuli, social brain hypothesis, behavioural economics,

sociometer and persuasion. Future research can undertake the task of validating these theories

by designing and conducting empirical studies.

Availability of data and material: Not applicable

Code availability: Not applicable

Conflict of interest:

There is no conflict of interests

Funding sources:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public,

commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Ethics approval: Not applicable

Consent to participate: Not applicable

Consent for publication: Not applicable

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