Are Online Mobile Gamers Really Happy? On the Suppressor Role of Online Game Addiction

Abstract

Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response Theory and Flow Theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of environmental stimuli that are unique to the mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) environment (i.e., immediacy, social interaction, and competition) in inducing the state of flow, which is expected to be the basis of online game addiction and subjective happiness among the online mobile gamers. Besides, this study explores the uncharted role of addiction in suppressing the effect of flow on happiness through the theoretical lens of Rational Addiction Theory. The results indicate that all environmental stimuli are directly and positively related to the state of flow, which relates directly and positively to online game addiction and subjective happiness. Online game addiction is found to have a direct and negative association with subjective happiness, on top of its suppressor role that negatively mediates the relationship between flow and subjective happiness.

Appendices

Appendix A: A Summary of Empirical Studies on Online Game Addiction

Empirical Studies	Objectives	Antecedents of online game addiction	Consequences of online game addiction	Online game genres covered	Focused on environmental stimuli within the online game?	Focused on online gamers’ well-being?
Present study	To investigate the effects of environmental stimuli that are unique to the mobile MOBA environment (i.e., immediacy, social interaction, and competition) in inducing the state of flow, which is expected to be the basis of online game addiction and subjective happiness among the online mobile gamers. Moreover, the present study seeks to ascertain if online game addiction is acting as a suppressor that negatively mediates the positive effect of flow on happiness among the online mobile gamers	Immediacy, social interaction, competition, and flow	Subjective happiness	MOBA	Yes	Yes
Başol and Kaya (2018)	To develop the Online Game Addiction Scale and examine its properties	None	None	MMORPG	No	No
Batmaz and Celik (2021)	To examine the roles of sensation-seeking behaviour and loneliness levels in predicting online game addiction	Sensation-seeking behaviour and loneliness levels	None	None	No	No
Baysak et al. (2016)	To evaluate the reliability and validity of “The Game Addiction Scale” as an instrument to assess online game addiction in an online game players sample in Turkey and examine the game addiction levels in these players	None	None	MMOG	No	No
Baysak et al. (2018)	To investigate the change in gaming behaviours and addiction rates of online gamers within two years	None	Self-esteem, perceived social support, and life satisfaction	None	No	Yes
Bekir and Çelik (2019)	To examine the level of online game addiction in terms of need for relatedness, need for autonomy, need for competence, and sensation seeking	Need for relatedness, need for autonomy, need for competence, and sensation seeking	None	None	No	No
Borzikowsky and Bernhardt (2018)	To examine the prognostic value of grit for online game addiction	Grit, gender, and age	None	MMOG	No	No
Liu and Chang (2016)	To clarify player addiction to online games	Entertainment, pass time, escape, co-playing, social interactivity, and flow	None	None	No	No
Lee and Kim (2017)	To analyse the effect of online gaming on addiction	Demographic variables, average online gaming time, game use after midnight, game genre, parental variables, play and leisure environment, and satisfaction of relationship with others	None	None	No	No
Cui et al. (2018)	To cross-culturally compare the impact gaming time, game genre, leisure environment, parental attachment, parental mediation and relationships with significant others have on psychosocially problematic gaming	Gender, gaming time, gaming genre, parental attachment, parental mediation, play and leisure environment, and satisfying relationships with others	None	MMORPG	No	No
Duman and Ozkara (2021)	To investigate the mediating role played by the fear of missing out between social identity and online game addiction on top of ascertaining the moderating role of the need to belong in the indirect relationship between social identity and online game addiction	Social identity and fear of missing out	None	MMORPG	No	No
Durak (2019)	To determine the relationship between online game addiction and the state of providing personal cybersecurity and representing cyber human values	Providing personal cybersecurity, respect-oriented behaviours, tolerance-oriented behaviours, truth-oriented behaviours, peace-oriented behaviours, and solidarity-oriented behaviours	None	None	No	No
Durak et al. (2022)	To determine the risk factors that predict online game addiction of gifted and nongifted high school students	Gender, age, parental supervision, preferred online game type, contingencies of self-worth, academic grade point average, academic self-efficacy, and metacognitive awareness levels	None	None	No	No
Kim et al. (2008)	To explore the relationship between online game addiction and aggression, self-control, and narcissistic personality traits	Aggression, self-control, and narcissistic personality traits	None	None	No	No
Lu and Wang (2008)	To explore the factors that affect the online game addiction and the role played by online game addiction in the relationship between online satisfaction and loyalty	Perceived behavioural control, descriptive norms, and perceived playfulness	Loyalty	None	No	No
Huanhuan and Su (2013)	To examine the role of cognitive distortions in the development of online game addiction	Male, age, educational level, rumination, all-or-nothing thinking, online comfort, and short-term thinking	None	None	No	No
Hyun et al. (2015)	To identify factors that may influence the development of online gaming addiction	Gender, age, IQ, perseverative errors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, family environment, social anxiety, and self-esteem	None	None	No	Yes
Mun and Lee (2021)	To examine the impact of parents’ depression on their children’s online gaming addiction and investigates the mediating roles of intrusive parenting and children’s social motivation for playing online games on this relationship	Parents’ depression, intrusive parenting, and children’s social motivation for playing online games	None	None	No	No
Chen et al. (2020)	To explore the potential role of adolescents’ time management tendency in mediating the relationship between parenting style and adolescent internet gaming disorder	Emotional warmth, rejection, over-protection, and time management tendency	None	None	No	No
Lee et al. (2019)	To investigate the predictors of game addiction based on loneliness and regulatory focus while taking into consideration the moderating effect of inter-personal competence	Loneliness and regulatory focus	None	None	No	No
Kim et al. (2017)	To explore why adolescents become addicted to online games and how their immersion in online games affects school violence perpetration	Self-esteem and child abuse	School violent perpetration	None	No	No
Jap et al. (2013)	To develop a measure of online game addiction for Indonesian children and adolescents	None	None	None	No	No
Chen et al. (2010)	To investigate antecedents affecting MMOG dependency	Multimedia realism, aesthetics, virtual community, and diversion	None	MMOG	No	No
Labana et al. (2020)	To evaluate the association between online game addiction and depression	None	Depression	None	No	Yes
Li et al. (2016)	To explore the incidence of online game addiction and the roles of stressful life events, avoidant coping styles, and neuroticism in online game addiction	Stressful life events and avoidant coping strategy	None	None	No	Yes
Naaj and Nachouki (2021)	To determine the impact of playing online games on students’ academic performance	Gender and age	Academic performance	None	No	No
Wu (2013)	To determine whether or not being a materialist is a factor that influences online game addiction	Materialism	None	None	No	No
Park et al. (2016)	To determine whether the genre of the online game is associated with impulsivity and sociality in individuals with online game addictions	Self-esteem, impulsiveness, comorbidity, social interaction status, and cognitive function	None	MMORPG, RTS, and FPS	No	Yes
Payam and Mirzaeidoostan (2019)	To investigate the roles of cognitive distortion, parenting style, and narcissistic personality traits in online game addiction	Cognitive distortion, parenting style, and narcissistic personality traits	None	None	No	No
Son et al. (2013)	To explore the association between MMORPG addiction and mental health status, and between self-control ability and mental health status among young male MMORPG players	None	Mental disorders and self-control ability	MMORPG	No	Yes
Wu et al. (2013)	To explore specialization among online gamers and its possible effects on two important online-game experiences namely flow and addiction	Flow experiences	None	MMORPG	No	No
Vukosavljevic-Gvozden et al. (2015)	To determine whether the symptoms of psychopathology are mediators between irrational belief and Internet gaming addiction	Irrational belief and psychopathology symptoms	None	None	No	Yes
Wang et al. (2021c)	To examine the effects of psychological ownership, gaming motivation, and primary–secondary control on online game addiction	Achievement motivation, social motivation, escapism motivation, psychological ownership, primary control, and secondary control	None	None	No	No
Wang (2021)	To investigate the effect of interparental conflicts on online game addiction symptomatology among adolescents and to explore mediating effects of parent-adolescent relationship and adolescent loneliness	Interparental conflicts, parent-adolescent relationship, and adolescent loneliness	None	None	No	No
You et al. (2017)	To examine the relationship of various psychosocial variables to online game addiction, and the mediation effect of avatar identification on the relationship	Self-esteem, depression, social skills, and avatar identification	None	MMORPG	No	Yes
Lee et al. (2015)	To develop and validate an instrument for massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) addiction	None	None	MMOG	No	No
Xu et al. (2012b)	To propose and test a balanced model of online game addiction, which simultaneously focuses on motivating, and prevention and harm reduction forces	Relationship, escapism, mechanics, advancement, game playing, attention switching, dissuasion, rationalization/education, parental monitoring, resource restriction, and perceived cost	None	None	No	No
Zhao et al. (2020)	To explore presence of meaning and search for meaning as underlying mediating and moderating variables in explaining the link between bullying victimization and online game addiction	Bullying victimization, presence of meaning, and search for meaning	None	None	No	No
Zhong and Yao (2013)	To explore the effects of gaming motivations and avatar self-identification on symptoms of online game addiction	Motivation to relax, motivation to socialize, motivation to escape, motivation to achieve, and avatar self-identification	None	None	No	No

1. MOBA  multiplayer online battle arena, MMORPG massively multiplayer online role-playing game, MMOG massively multiplayer online game, RTS real-time strategy, FPS first person shooter

Appendix B: A Summary of Empirical Studies on Hedonic IS

Empirical Studies	Objectives	Theories/Models	Antecedents	Ultimate endogenous constructs	Focused on the well-being of users?
Present study	To investigate the effects of environmental stimuli that are unique to the mobile MOBA environment (i.e., immediacy, social interaction, and competition) in inducing the state of flow, which is expected to be the basis of online game addiction and subjective happiness among the online mobile gamers. Moreover, the present study seeks to ascertain if online game addiction is acting as a suppressor that negatively mediates the positive effect of flow on happiness among the online mobile gamers	Stimulus-organism-response theory, flow theory, and rational addiction theory	Immediacy, social interaction, competition, flow, and game addiction	Subjective happiness	Yes
Chen et al. (2016)	To explore both social and gaming factors of social games and investigate their roles on enhancing perceived enjoyment	Social influence theory	Shared identity, social interaction, diversion, perceived enjoyment, intention to play, subject norm, and perceived critical mass	Actual playing behaviour	No
Ammar and Barki (2016)	To examine factors that influence individuals’ intentions to continue the use of social network sites	Social presence theory and social exchange theory	Enjoyment, perceived frequency of feedback received, perceived frequency of feedback sent, perceived social presence, attitude, and perceived usefulness	Intention	No
Barnes (2011)	To examine why people continue to use virtual worlds	Habit theory	Frequency of prior usage, perceived usefulness, habit, and enjoyment	Continuance intention	No
Hsiao and Chiou (2012)	To investigate how a player’s network centrality in an online gaming community (i.e., a guild) affects his/her attitude and continuance intention toward a massive multiplayer online game	Social capital theory	Network centrality, non-guild interaction, access to within guild resources, perceived enjoyment, and attitude	Continuance intention	No
Hsiao and Tang (2016)	To proposes a post-acceptance model of mobile movie-themed games from the perspective of experiential marketing with five experiential elements of movie-themed games	None	Thematic attractiveness, perceived enjoyment, flow, act, and relate	Loyalty and movie-watching intention	No
Choi and Lim (2016)	To examine the effects of social and information technology overload on psychological well-being	Cognitive load theory, bounded rationality theory, and human interruption theory	Social overload, technology overload, and social network service addiction	Psychological well-being	Yes
Hsu and Lu (2004)	To predict users’ acceptance of online games	Technology acceptance model, flow theory, reference group theory, and social exchange theory	Social norms, critical mass, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, flow experience, and attitude	Intention to play	No
Lin and Bhattacherjee (2010)	To examine which system determinants would influence interactive hedonic system usage	Theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour	Technical quality, interaction quality, perceived enjoyment, social image, and attitude	Usage intention	No
Xu et al. (2012a)	To study why do people use social networking sites	Uses and gratifications theory and social presence theory	Stylishness, coordination, immediate access, affection, escape, disclosure, entertainment/relaxation, social presence, and loneliness	Social networking sites usage	No
Cocosila and Igonor (2015)	To report on a value-based empirical investigation of the adoption of Twitter social networking application	None	Utilitarian value, hedonic value, social value, image, social presence, critical mass, and social norm	Behavioural intention	No
Constantiou et al. (2012)	To investigate user behaviour in massively multiplayer online games from the perspective of their intentions to engage in real money trading	None	Perceived enjoyment, competitive advantage, anticipated regret, social status, perceived fairness, online disinhibition, other people reactions, operator’s indirect costs, seller’s uncertainty, consequences’ uncertainty, and unplanned item scarcity	Intentions towards real money trading	No
Constantiou et al. (2009)	To explores the relationship between young adults’ perceptions of value elements and their adoption intentions of mobile TV	Theory of reason-based choice	Perceived benefits and perceived costs	Adoption intentions	No
Liu et al. (2013a)	To understand how different digital game designs impact players’ behaviours and emotional responses	Tournament theory	Competition	Number of game attempts, playing time, enjoyment, and arousal	No
Goel et al. (2011)	To predict users’ intentions to return to a virtual world	Interactionist theory of place attachment	Social awareness, location awareness, task awareness, and cognitive absorption	Intention to return	No
Goel et al. (2013)	To provide an alternate explanation for why people return to virtual worlds	Spatial model of interaction and awareness-attention theory	Social perception, social awareness, focused immersion, and temporal dissociation	Intention to return	No
Gu et al. (2016)	To understand users’ multi-homing on social networking sites	Optimum stimulation level theory and uses and gratifications theory	Optimum stimulation level, complementarity in interpersonal communication, complementarity in self-presentation, complementarity in information, and complementarity in entertainment	Intention to multi-home	No
Guo and Barnes (2012)	To explore the factors influencing purchase behaviour in virtual worlds by empirically developing and testing a conceptual model of purchase behaviour in virtual worlds	Transaction cost theory and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology	Advancement, customisation, perceived enjoyment, perceived social status, perceived value, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, social influence, and habit	Actual purchase behaviour	No
Mun et al. (2010)	To understand digital multimedia broadcasting users’ usage intentions	IS success model	System quality, content quality, enjoyment, ubiquitousness, time pressure, and satisfaction	Intention to use	No
Lin et al. (2014)	To examine the determinants that impact users’ social networking sites continuance	Self-regulation framework and social presence theory	System quality, awareness, connectedness, pleasure, sense of belonging, and satisfaction	Continuance intention	No
Ha et al. (2007)	To analyse the factors that influence potential users’ adoption of Mobile Broadband Wireless Access technology-based games using an extension of technology acceptance model	Technology acceptance model	Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, flow experience, perceived lower sacrifices, and perceived attractiveness	Attitude	No
Heijden (2004)	To study the differences in user acceptance models for productivity-oriented (or utilitarian) and pleasure-oriented (or hedonic) IS	Motivational theory and technology acceptance model	Perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and perceived ease of use	Intention to use	No
Holsapple and Wu (2007)	To explore the potential of imaginal and emotional responses in explaining user acceptance of virtual worlds	Hedonic theory	Fantasy, role projection, escapism, enjoyment, emotional involvement, and arousal	Behaviour	No
Hu et al. (2015)	To develop an aggregate construct of online social value, which could be used to predict predicting satisfaction and continued use	Social exchange theory	Satisfaction, relational benefits, informational benefits, enjoyment, curiosity fulfilment, information risk, and effort	Continued use	No
Hu et al. (2011)	To focus exclusively on what might motivate non-adopters to accept online social network services	Status quo bias theory and technology acceptance model	Ease of use, effort, information risk, social norm, usefulness, and work full time	Behavioural intention	No
Hung et al. (2016)	To investigate the actual effect of the distinct sub-dimensions of perceived playfulness across various contexts	Theory of reasoned action and flow theory	Perceived concentration, perceived enjoyment, perceived curiosity, social norms, and attitude	Intended use	No
Wu and Holsapple (2014)	To examine the effects of six types of imaginal and emotional experiences on using pleasure-oriented IT	Hedonic consumption perspective	Fantasy, escapism, role projection, emotional involvement, enjoyment, arousal, and behavioural intention	Usage	No
Kim et al. (2011)	To explore factors of users’ motivation using social networking services via mixed methods	None	Networking, relieving stress, recording one’s history, collecting information, and pleasure	Behavioural intention to use	No
Junglas et al. (2013)	To examine the construct of sociability and its antecedents in a popular virtual social environment	IS theories of technology acceptance, IS success model, and social interaction theory	Usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, information quality, system quality, sociability, context support, activity support, representation support, and insight support	Intentions to use	No
Kondo and Ishida (2014)	To propose a model for cross-national analyses of intention to use multiple mobile entertainment services	Technology acceptance model and the theory of planned behaviour	Perceived behavioural control, perceived value, attitude towards mobile services, and subjective norm	Behavioural intention	No
Krasnova et al. (2010)	To examine the motivating and discouraging factors for information disclosure on online social networks platforms	Social exchange theory and privacy calculus theory	Convenience in relationship maintenance, relationship building, self-presentation, enjoyment, perceived privacy risk, trust in online social network provider, trust in other online social network members, perceived control	Self-disclosure	No
Lowry et al. (2013)	To explain the role of intrinsic motivations in systems use and propose the hedonic-motivation system adoption model to improve the understanding of hedonic-motivation systems adoption	Cognitive evaluation theory	Perceived ease of use, joy, control, curiosity, perceived usefulness, and immersion	Intention to use	No
Lowry et al. (2015)	To explain and predict the discrete cognitive processes through which systems fulfil a range of motives and expectations and how this fulfilment leads to continuance intentions	None	Usefulness, attitude, disconfirmation, satisfaction, design expectations fit, ease of use, and design aesthetics	Intention to continue	No
Luarn et al. (2015)	To develop and refine a conceptual framework from social word-of-mouth motivations and the mobile perspective to provide a theoretical understanding of the motivations that induce consumers to engage in check-in behaviour	None	Altruism, narcissism, image building, achievement, documenting life details, tie strength, subjective norms, expressiveness, social support, relationship management, information sharing, rewards, donations, perceived social benefit, perceived user friendliness, perceived enjoyment, perceived value, customer satisfaction, involvement of communicator, and commitment	Engage in check-in behaviour	No
Hsu et al. (2015)	To identify what may drive users’ decision to use social media continuously	Uses and gratifications theory	Entertainment, information seeking, socialisation, and self-presentation	Continuance intention	No
Ma et al. (2014)	To explore how cumulative outcomes, recent outcomes, and prior use affect online gambling behaviour differently	Gambling theory and theory of repeated behaviour	Cumulative gain, cumulative loss, immediate gain, immediate loss, current online gambling, regular use, and extended use	Subsequent online gambling	No
Maier et al. (2015)	To explore the development of discontinuous usage intentions, namely the behavioural intention in the termination phase, in the context of social networking services	None	Complexity, uncertainty, invasion, pattern, disclosure, social overload, transition costs, sunk costs, replacement overload, social networking services-exhaustion, and switching-exhaustion	Discontinuous usage behaviour	No
Manthiou et al. (2014)	To investigate the dual routes of consumers’ decision-making processes on behavioural change toward purchase on Facebook fan pages using the prototype willingness model	Prototype willingness model	Information source, social interaction ties, fan page design characteristics, entertainment, attitude toward fan page, subjective norms, prototype image, behavioural intention toward fan page, and behavioural willingness toward fan page	Behavioural change toward purchase	No
Liu et al. (2013b)	To examine the drivers to virtual worlds learning continuance	Balanced thinking-feelings model and social-constructivist theory	Virtual worlds efficacy, self-reported learning, social presence, group cohesion, utilitarian value, and hedonic value	Continuance Intention on virtual world learning	No
Nah and Eschenbrenner (2016)	To understand gender differences in media perceptions of hedonic systems	Theory of spatial gender differences and theory of psychological types on gender differences	Skill, challenge, and telepresence	Satisfaction with online experience	No
Nah et al. (2011)	To investigate if the three-dimensional virtual world environment is more effective than the two-dimensional environment in creating hedonic experiences of customers' interaction with a brand and whether such experiences help to enhance brand equity, or the added value of a brand	Flow theory, telepresence theory, brand equity theory, and broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions	Telepresence, enjoyment, and brand equity	Behavioural intention	No
Pagani and Mirabello (2011)	To understand how social media is transforming consumer engagement and redefining commercial marketing strategies using video on the Web, mobile devices, and traditional TV	None	Stimulation and inspiration, temporal, intrinsic enjoyment, participation and socializing, utilitarian, self-esteem and civic-mindedness, community, and social facilitation	Active usage and passive usage	No
Pelet et al. (2017)	To investigate the relationships between telepresence, flow experience, and user behaviour during social media use	Flow theory	Telepresence, flow, enjoyment, concentration, challenge, control, curiosity, and time distortion	Social media use	No
Pöyry et al. (2013)	To distinguish between consumers’ hedonic and utilitarian motivations for using company-hosted Facebook pages and relate them to two types of community usage behaviour: browsing and participation	Theory of web usage and flow theory	Hedonic motivations, utilitarian motivations, participation, and browsing	Purchase intention, referral intention, and membership continuance intention	No
Salehan et al. (2017)	To analyse how motivation, participation, and performance are related to each other in the social networking services context	Motivation-participation-performance framework	Vertical social motivation, horizontal social motivation, hedonic motivation, utilitarian motivation, sharing, and collaboration	Personal and job performance	No
Seol et al. (2016)	To explain the continuance of corporate social network services pages	Communicative ecology theory	Platform quality, content quality, service quality, exchange information, social support, friendship, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, satisfaction, network size, and incentive	Continuance intention	No
Shang et al. (2017)	To probe into how and how much the situational field factors interact with motivational factors and affect the sharing-continuance decisions on social media platforms	Field theory	Perceived usefulness, community identification, social interaction, altruism tendency, perceived enjoyment, and self-efficacy	Information sharing continuance	No
Shin (2012)	To present a predictive model of attitudes toward 3DTV	Technology acceptance model and theory of reasoned action	Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived system quality, perceived content quality, social presence, flow, attitude, and intention	Usage	No
Sledgianowski and Kulviwat (2009)	To empirically investigating factors influencing user adoption of social network sites	Technology acceptance model	Perceived playfulness, critical mass, perceived trust, normative pressure, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention	Actual use	No
Sun et al. (2014)	To explore users’ continuance intention in online social networks	IS continuance theory, flow theory, social capital theory, and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology	Usage satisfaction, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, shared norms, trust, tie strength, effort expectancy, and social influence	Continuance intention	No
Torres et al. (2014)	To empirically examine the adoption of mobile eBook readers in order to better understand the role of content in the adoption decision making process	Technology acceptance model and motivation theory	Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived playfulness, hedonic content availability, and utilitarian content availability	Behavioural Intention to use	No
Turel (2015a)	To explore hedonic IS discontinuance	Social cognitive theory	Addiction to using, habit of using, satisfaction, self-efficacy, and guilt feelings	Discontinuance intentions	No
Turel (2016)	To propose and examine a model that explicates the complex effects of guilt and theory of planned behaviour predictors on the discontinuance of an instance of mostly hedonic IS	Theory of planned behaviour	Subjective norms, attitude, perceived behavioural control, and guilt feelings	Discontinuance intentions	No
Turel and Serenko (2012)	To test and validate the dual effect of enjoyment on the use of the IT artifact	Theory of intrinsic motivation	Time spent per-day, comprehensiveness of usage, perceived enjoyment, and habit	Addiction and high engagement	No
Turel et al. (2010)	Other than focusing solely on behavioural intentions to use a hedonic digital artifact, this study also examined the willingness of users to provide positive word-of-mouth about the artifact	Theory of consumption values	Escapism, enjoyment, musical appeal, social value, and value-for-money	Behavioural intention and positive word-of-mouth	No
Weiss and Schiele (2013)	To examine competitive virtual worlds in terms of eSports services intrinsically tying cooperation and competition	Uses and gratifications theory	Competition, challenge, and escapism	Continuous eSports use	No
Lin et al. (2017)	To explain and analyse gender differences in users’ social networking sites continuance decisions	IS continuance theory and social role theory	Perceived usefulness, satisfaction, perceived enjoyment, privacy risk, community identification, reputation, and confirmation	Continuance intention	No
Lu et al. (2011)	To explain the effects of factors related to usability and sociability on virtual community members’ continuous participation through the motivational beliefs of perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and sense of belonging	None	Information service quality, interaction support quality, incentive policy, event organization, leaders’ involvement, usefulness, enjoyment, and sense of belonging	Intention of continuous participation	No
Xu et al. (2010)	To investigate whether the fit between the media platform and the content application could function as the key factor that determines user evaluation and acceptance of media convergence	Task-technology fit framework	Characteristics of contents, characteristics of media platform, attentional involvement, and emotional enjoyment	Satisfaction with mobile video entertainment	No
Xu et al. (2014)	To explore why users switch from a primary social networking service to others	Push–pull–mooring human migration framework, IS success model, and social penetration theory	Dissatisfaction with technical quality, dissatisfaction with information quality, dissatisfaction with entertainment value, dissatisfaction with socialization support, dissatisfaction with member policy, setup cost, continuity cost, dissatisfaction with the current social networking service, attraction from the alternative social networking service, switching costs, and peer influence	Intention to switch	No
Yang and Lin (2014)	To examine the influence of perceived values on individual’s stickiness to use Facebook, on top of exploring how “trust” affects the personal usage behaviours	None	Epistemic value, social value, hedonic value, and trust	Stickiness	No
Yin and Zhu (2014)	To investigate the antecedents and effects of users’ habit in the context of social networking websites	None	Satisfaction, enjoyment, prior usage, social interaction ties, habit, and post-adoption online self-presentation	Social networking websites continued usage	No
Yin et al. (2013)	To extend the theoretical understanding of social networking adoption from initial acceptance to subsequent continuance usage	IS continuance theory	Confirmation, perceived usefulness, satisfaction, perceived enjoyment, structural embeddedness, perceived privacy risk, and prior usage	Continuance usage intention	No
Yoon and Rolland (2015)	To explore the role of enjoyment and subjective norms in continuance use of social networking services	IS continuance theory	Perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, confirmation, subjective norm, satisfaction, and continuance intention	Continuance usage	No
Liu et al. (2016)	To examine the effect of perceived social costs, and benefits, of self-disclosure on self-disclosure in microblogging using Chinese data	Social exchange theory	Perceived privacy risk, trust in service provider, perceived anonymity self, convenience of relationship maintenance, relationship building, enjoyment, and self-presentation	Self-disclosure	No
Wang and Scheepers (2012)	To explore the intrinsic motivations of hedonic IS acceptance from a unique perspective	Hedonic theory, pleasure, arousal, and dominance emotion model, flow theory, and technology acceptance model	Pleasure, arousal, dominance, role projection, escapism, perceived ease of use, attitude towards using, and flow experience	Behavioural intention	No
Zhou et al. (2012)	To explain customer continuance intention with respect to social virtual world services	Dedication-constraint theory of commitment	Utilitarian value, hedonic value, personalisation, learning, relational capital, satisfaction, calculative commitment, and affective commitment	Continuance intention	No
Zhou et al. (2015)	To investigate the contingent effects of indulgence and individualism, which are two cultural values that affect the relationships between users’ perceived benefits (i.e., utilitarian value, hedonic value, and relational capital) and affective commitment, and that between affective commitment and continuance intention in social virtual worlds	Hofstede’s theory of national culture	Utilitarian value, hedonic value, relational capital, and affective commitment	Continuance intention	No
Zhou et al. (2014)	To investigate the effects of the three types of perceived benefits, moderated by gender, on satisfaction in relation to social virtual world continuance	None	Utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit, social benefit, and satisfaction	Continuance intention	No