Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The use of Internet social network sites has become an international phenomenon. These websites enable computer-mediated communication between people with common interests such as school, family, and friendship. Popular sites include MySpace and Facebook. Their rapid widespread usage warrants a better understanding. This study contributes to our understanding by empirically investigating factors influencing user adoption of these sites. We introduce the Social Network Site Adoption model to examine the effect of perceptions of normative pressure, playfulness, critical mass, trust, usefulness, and ease of use on usage intention and actual usage of these sites. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the patterns of inter-correlations among the constructs and to empirically test the hypotheses. All the hypothesized determinants have a significant direct effect on intent to use, with perceived playfulness and perceived critical mass the strongest indicators. Intent to use and perceived playfulness have a significant direct effect on actual usage.
Sledgianowski et al. (Mon,) studied this question.