A Comparison of Instant Messaging Applications Adoption and Usage by Young and Middle-aged People in China

Abstract

The emergence of social media has enormously changed methods of communication in people’s daily lives. Amongst the most popular social media accepted by the public are social networking sites. In recent years, researchers and business executives have paid much attention to the adoption and usage of social networking. Instant Messaging (IM), which was originally designed as a communication tool, has experienced rapid development to become a social medium platform, especially in China. However, there is limited research concentrating on the IM field. This study presents a theoretical framework to investigate IM adoption and usage in China. Social media are considered to be primarily adopted by young people. Therefore, most prior studies have used young people as research subjects. In reality, increasing numbers of middle-aged and older people are beginning to accept IM applications. This study targets both young and middle-aged IM users, and compares IM adoption and usage between the two age groups. The theoretical framework for this research was developed on the basis of widely accepted theories in the information systems field. A quantitative method was adopted for this study. An online survey on the SurveyMonkey website targeted young and middle-aged IM users in China. In the three-month response collection period, a total of 323 surveys were completed. The data collected from the online survey was analysed using Statistical Program and Service Solution (SPSS) and Analysis of Moment Structures (Amos). This study makes both academic and practical contributions. It examines the reliability of previous widely accepted theories, and makes a significant contribution to IM studies in terms of age-related differences. The findings of this research are valuable for social network developers. By considering the design of IM applications based on the adoption and usage characteristics of young and middle-aged users, they may attract more users to adopt their IM products.