research-article

Do I Stay or Do I Go?: Motivations and Decision Making in Social Media Non-use and Reversion

Authors:

Sukeshini A. Grandhi,

Linda Plotnick,

Starr Roxanne HiltzAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 3, Issue GROUP

Article No.: 235, Pages 1 - 27

https://doi.org/10.1145/3361116

Published: 05 December 2019 Publication History

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which users give up as well as revert back to using social media based on the analysis of qualitative data from 680 respondents to a survey (N=1072). By focusing on the motivations rather than any particular social media platform, we were able to uncover reasons for voluntary non-use and reversion when users have a choice of several social media platforms. Our findings provide an ecological view of social media non-use and reversion highlighting that 1) previous findings of social media non-use and reversion reported on a single social media platform (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) are seen across several other platforms too; 2) access to multiple social media platforms in itself readily leads to non-use of one platform in favor of the use of another for reasons such as lack of differentiation and/or richness of features, device constraints of storage/ memory space or operating system support, perceptions of fading popularity, and availability of "a new kid on the block;" 3) findings of non-use and reversion practices and motivations that were seemingly incongruent between previous studies of different or same social media platforms tend to coalesce when we take a wider look at the social media landscape. By adopting the theoretical lens of cognitive biases in decision-making we were able to explain why users quit but decide to revert to using again in the environment of various positive and negative experiences on a particular platform, and to reconcile the seemingly paradoxical reasons for social media non-use and reversion.

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Index Terms

Do I Stay or Do I Go?: Motivations and Decision Making in Social Media Non-use and Reversion
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 3, Issue GROUP

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December 2019

425 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3375021

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KAIST
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Published: 05 December 2019

Published in PACMHCI Volume 3, Issue GROUP

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Sarig RWolff RToch E(2024)Cleaning house or quiet quitting? Large-scale analysis of account deletion behaviour on TumblrBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2024.2370432(1-21)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2370432
Wang LRzeszotarski J(2023)Understanding Motivational Factors in Social Media News Sharing DecisionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35795387:CSCW1(1-30)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579538
Keküllüoglu DVaniea KWolters MMagdy W(2023)Twitter has a Binary Privacy Setting, are Users Aware of How It Works?Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35795377:CSCW1(1-18)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
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