Why They Become Addicted: Relationship between Microblogging Usage and Addiction

Internet addiction is a relatively new and fast-growing stream in IS research. In recent years, academic literature has started to investigate its related conception, symptoms, characteristics and outcomes in various contexts, describing it with different terms. Considering the popularity and addictive attributes of microblogging, in contrast with the limited published research on the addiction of such applications, we believe that it is meaningful to fill in this research gap. In this paper, we argue that Internet addiction is a psychological status resulting from cumulated Internet usage, and should be able to be interpreted by investigating the continued usage behavior. Based on a thorough discussion on previous studies, in this paper, we analyze the characteristics of microblogging usage and addiction, identify corresponding constructs, and propose a research model for understanding the relationships between usage types and user addiction. The model is empirically tested by using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis. The results indicate that not all micro-blogging usages will induce addiction, and addiction would emerge and grow asynchronously along four dimensions.