Responses to ambivalence toward social networking sites: A typological perspective

Abstract

A common assumption in prior research on social networking sites (SNS) has been that users' orientations toward SNS use are positioned somewhere along a bipolar, univalent continuum, stretching from negative to positive orientation. However, considering recent findings unfolding the intricacy and variety of SNS use patterns, such a linear conceptualization of users' orientations is too simplistic with limited ability to explain the intricate patterns of SNS use. To alleviate this deficiency in this paper, we draw on the ambivalence literature and explain that users can simultaneously experience both positive and negative orientations toward SNS use based on the positive and negative aspects of their SNS use experience. Focusing on post- adoptive SNS use context, we theorise archetypes of SNS users' attitudinal responses to ambivalence, and their associated behavioural outcomes in terms of SNS use patterns. We first follow a typological perspective and develop typologies of attitudinal and behavioural responses to ambivalence toward SNS use. Then, we offer six hypotheses that explain the relations between the archetypes of attitudinal responses to ambivalence toward SNS use and users' SNS use patterns. Lastly, we empirically test our hypotheses using latent profile analysis and ANCOVA applied to two-wave data collected from 370 ambivalent SNS users. The findings support the hypotheses and validate our typologies. The findings ultimately point to likely choices from a range of post-adoption SNS use patterns as plausible outcomes of SNS users' attitudinal responses to ambivalence.