What motivates people to continuously engage in online task-oriented check-ins? The role of perceived social presence
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-05-2022-0252 |
| Published date | 19 August 2022 |
| Date | 19 August 2022 |
| Pages | 390-406 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
| Author | Wenzheng Sun,Hong Liu,Nainan Wen |
What motivates people to
continuously engage in online task-
oriented check-ins? The role of
perceived social presence
Wenzheng Sun
School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Hong Liu
School of Management, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Nanjing, China, and
Nainan Wen
School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose –Online task-oriented check-ins (i.e. OTOCs) are popular means of tracking personal progress in
certain fields. This study focused on the use of OTOC platforms and explored the predictors of individuals’
continuing usage intention.
Design/methodology/approach–A model was proposed to understand Chinese users’continuous intention
of OTOCs based on the UTAUT framework. Perceived social presence was also incorporated as a predictor of
continuance intention of OTOC platforms. A survey of 397 users of the OTOC platforms was conducted in
Nanjing, China.
Findings –Performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and habit had direct, positive influence on the continuous
use intention, whereas effort expectancy and social influence were not significant predictors of continuance intention
of OTOCs. Perceived social presence was a significant, indirect predictor of intention to continuously use the OTOCs,
and the relationship was mediated by performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and habit.
Originality/value –This study distinguished OTOCs from other modes of self-tracking and extended the
UTAUT frameworkby incorporating perceived social presence as a predictor of continuous technology use
in the context of OTOCs. This study also provided a deeper understanding of the interrelations between the
explanatory variables of the model that have been identified as robust in previous literature on
technology use.
Keywords Online task-oriented check-in, Perceived social presence, UTAUT, Continuous use,
Information technology
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Online task-oriented check-in (i.e. OTOC) platforms allow users to record and monitor their
progress in a certain field (e.g. learning a foreign language, physical exercise, and keeping
healthy sleep habits) by logging onto a mobile application (i.e. app) or social network site
(i.e. SNS) on a regular basis (Lupton, 2016). People are motivated to use OTOC and other self-
tracking platforms to collect, analyze, reflect on, and regulate data about themselves to
improve their health or other aspects of life (Lomborg and Frandsen, 2016;Neff and
Nafus, 2016).
OTOC platforms have become very popular in many countries. For example, Keep,a
popular fitness application in China, allows users to participate in online physical training
AJIM
75,2
390
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the National Social Science Foundation of China
(19CXW036).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2050-3806.htm
Received 11 May 2022
Revised 17 July 2022
Accepted 22 July 2022
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 75 No. 2, 2023
pp. 390-406
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-05-2022-0252
courses, record their training progress, and connect with other users. On Keep, users’
progress in terms of whether they have completed a course or how much they have achieved
is made available to other users. Habitify is another habit-tracking application that has won
the Editors’Choice of the App Store in 2018 and the Best Apps of Google Play in 2017 and
2018 (Habitify, 2022). Users create a list of habits and receive multiple reminders to perform
the habit or complete the task within the timeframe they set. They find it motivating and
rewarding to check their performance and progress in the form of data, graphs, and charts. In
addition to self-tracking mobile applications, users can also record and track their progress
on a certain task on SNSs, although the SNS is not designed particularly for self-tracking
purposes. For example, there were 1.032 million posts of #zaoqi daka [1] (i.e. getting up early
in English) on Weibo, a micro-blogging site and one of the most popular social networking
platforms in China.
As a particular mode of self-tracking, the use behavior of OTOC platforms deserves our
research attention. There are two reasons. First, users’documenting and managing
personal informatics on the OTOC platforms are usually motivated by achieving life goals,
ranging from learning a foreign language to improving health status. Other modes of self-
tracking do not put as much emphasis as the OTOCs on completionof a task and attainment
of a goal. Users may simply track to improve self-knowledge. For example, users employ
sleep tracking applications (e.g. SleepWatch and Pillow) and mood tracking applications
(e.g. Moodily and Daylio) to learn more about their own sleep and mood patterns. Second,
compared with the more general self-tracking behaviors, the OTOCs are more likely to
emphasize users’perception of being together with, accompanied by, and encouraged by
other members of the community. This is also termed perceived social presence (Short et al.,
1976). Empirical studies and anecdotal stories haveshowed some evidence that whether the
users of OTOC and other self-tracking platforms complete a certain task successfully or
fulfil a goal set by themselves or the trackers (i.e. digital devices measuring activities)
depends largely on the users’connection and interaction with other members (Sharon and
Zandbergen, 2017). The OTOC platforms facilitate a networked, shared online community
where users contribute expertise and receive advice, obtain and bestow support and
encouragement, and constantly feel the prompt from their peers toward the completion of a
task. This perceived social presence or a “supportive gaze”from the commun ity or others
would reinforce the self-trackers’sense of achievement and gratification (Kent, 2018;
Sharon, 2017).
This study focuses on the use of OTOC platforms and explores the predictors of
individuals’continuing usage intention. Based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of
technology (UTAUT, Venkatesh et al., 2012), we constructed a research model that included
various predictors of individuals’continuance intention of OTOC platforms, such as
performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, and habit.
In addition, this study incorporated perceived social presence in the research model to test its
direct effect on continuance intention of OTOC platforms and the indirect effect through
performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and habit.
Literature review
OTOC as a mode of self-tracking
Self-tracking, also termed life-logging, personal analytics, and personal informatics, refers to
the various ways people monitor and record certain features of their lives (Lupton, 2016).
Today, people collect and accumulate a considerable amount of data about themselves and
track progress on their everyday activities through a multitude of digital technologies, such
as spreadsheet software, applications, and wearable devices and platforms. The digitized
modes of self-tracking generate personal data on users’physical location and movements in
Online task-
oriented
check-ins
391
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