"Like" is More than Just a Thumbs up: The Role of Feedback and Sociability in SNS Usage

Social network sites (SNS) have increasingly become widely used technologies that are well integrated in the daily routines of many individuals. As venues for information sharing, SNS provide a diversity of communication capabilities and feedback features that can stir emotions, attitudes, beliefs, as well as influencing many decisions. In this paper, we argue that the meanings that SNS feedback features communicate to individuals induce in them feelings of social presence and enjoyment, which then shape their experiences related to information technologies. To investigate the impact of feedbacks and social presence on individuals’ intentions in an SNS context, we proposed and tested a research model integrating the tackled concepts along with attitude, enjoyment and perceived usefulness. Our results suggest that feedback is an essential component of SNS, capable of shaping individual perceptions of social presence and enjoyment, which in turn, along with attitude and perceived usefulness, are expected to influence individual intentions.