Examining the Posters and Lurkers: Shyness, Sociability, and Community-related Attributes as Predictors of SNS Participation Online Status

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is an inter-conversion between posters and lurkers, and to further measure the effects of shyness, sociability, and the community-related attributes on the social network sites (SNS) participation status (posting or lurking). Quantitative survey was conducted among 412 Hong Kong college students. Shyness and sociability were respectively measured by the shyness scale and sociability scale developed by Cheek and Buss (1981). Results show that the majority (53.6%) of the respondents change their participation status of posters or lurkers from time to time. Among the overall respondents, hypotheses were partially supported as shyness and online relationship gratification shows significant predictive power on the level of SNS participation. Furthermore, the online relationship gratification shows a significant positive relation with participation status among the “flip-floppers”. To conclude, while shyness has a fundamental effect on the participation status from the outset, online relationship gratification shows bigger influence on the inter-conversion between posters and lurkers.