A motives framework of social media website use: A survey of young Americans

Social media is increasingly important in daily life and is an especially important social interaction mechanism for young people. Although research has been conducted evaluating user types based on motives for using social media, no such framework has been extended to social media websites. We extend previous research by evaluating the underlying structure of social media website usage motivations using a 13 item survey and evaluations from 19 different social media websites administered to 1686 young Americans. Using a multidimensional scaling approach, we uncover 2 major motive dimensions underlying social media website use: fun-related and content-specific. Based on the derived dimensions, we generate a graphical ''quadrant'' system for classifying social media websites and depict all 19 social media sites based on their quadrant. We propose that our quadrant system can be used by other researchers to further refine understanding of social media website usage motives. The use of social media (SM) has grown immensely over the past decade, with technological and Internet innovations like Face-book, Twitter, and YouTube achieving massive adoption in a few years (e.g., Brenner, 2013). Although many age groups use SM, young people are adopting at the fastest rate (Brenner & Smith, 2013). In 2013, 89% of young adults ages 18–29 reported using social networking sites, while only 78% of 30–49 year olds, 60% of 50–64 year olds, and 43% of adults over the age of 65 reported SM use (Brenner & Smith, 2013). Consequently, young peoples' experience of social relationships, information gathering, and interaction with the world is increasingly being shaped through SM (e.g., Correa, Hinsley, & De Zuniga, 2010). SM includes countless sites with very different functions or uses that fulfill different personal needs (Brandtzaeg & Heim, 2009). For example, it may seem obvious that specific SM fulfill specific needs (e.g., YouTube as an entertainment site); yet many SM ultimately develop uses that are perhaps unexpected (e.g., YouTube as a learning tool or messaging platform). Hence, it is important to understand how young people use and conceptualize SM to fully understand how various sites fulfill personal needs and affect how they interact with the world. Toward the end of understanding how young adults conceptualize SM, many attempts have been made to categorize SM users into representative typologies. For example, Brandtzaeg and Heim (2011) found five user types in a large-scale Norwegian survey. Similar efforts have found that Internet use more broadly has a similar dimensionality …