Investigating Antecedents to the Experience of Flow and Reported Learning Among Social Networking Site Users

Using an online survey (N = 888), this study investigated if the experience of flow mediated the influence of perceived social networking site credibility and social capital affinity (the sense of community and likeness felt for people online) on perceived focused and incidental knowledge gain among social networking sites users. The findings indicated that flow acted as a partial mediator in this context. However, social capital affinity strongly predicted perceived social networking site credibility and flow. Both perceived social networking site credibility and flow were predictors of perceived focused learning while social capital affinity was a strong, direct predictor of perceived incidental knowledge gain in this sample.