MILLENNIAL VERSUS NON-MILLENNIAL USERS: CONTEXT OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT LEVELS ON INSTAGRAM STORIES (EXTENDED VERSION)

Abstract

Ephemeral social media platforms, which displays rich media, primarily images and videos, are only available only for a short period of time. It has recently attracted researchers ' attention to better understand how ephemeral social media platforms impact users of social media. We design quantitative survey study that sampling data collected over two weeks (N= 149) to understand engagement differences (consuming, participating, producing) between Millennials and Non-millennials (the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X), on one of the leading ephemeral mobile platforms - on Instagram “Stories”. Our data demonstrated that Millennials show statistically significant differences by engaging Instagram “Stories” than Non-millennials. However, results unexpectedly demonstrate that non-millennial (age 40 and more in 2020) users show the same engagement level in “watching” and “reading” ephemeral content as Millennial users. Keywords: Instagram Stories, Customer Engagement, Ephemeral Social Media, User-generated content, Millennials