Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 39, October 2014, Pages 29-38
Computers in Human Behavior

The role of users’ motivations in generating social capital building and subjective well-being: The case of social network games

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.022Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This study explores the motivations that drive players to SNGs (social network games).

  • The SNGs motivations are entertainment, fantasy, the challenge of competition, and escapism.

  • SNG players’ motivations are positively related to subjective well-being.

  • SNG players are likely to seek escape from reality, have fun, or enjoy a fantasy experience.

  • SC moderates the relationship between the SNG-playing fantasy motivation and SWB.

Abstract

Social network games (SNGs)—which operate on a small scale and allow players to enjoy gaming with close friends—have exploded in popularity on the online social media scene in a very short time. This study explores the motivations that drive players to SNGs. The study investigates whether social capital serves as a moderating factor between these motivations and subjective well-being. Based on survey data (n = 560), the results show that SNG players seek entertainment, fantasy, the challenge of competition, and escapism when playing SNGs. The study finds that although social capital does not moderate the relationships between three motivations to play SNGs—entertainment, the challenge of competition, and escapism—and subjective well-being, it does moderate the relationship between the fantasy motivation and subjective well-being. Theoretical and practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Introduction

The technology research firm Gartner reports that the global social gaming population includes at least 750 million players and is expected to double to 1.5 billion players by 2015 — a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent (GamblingData, 2012). Social network games (hereafter SNGs) have exploded in popularity on the online social media scene in a very short time (Casual Games Association, 2012). The explosive growth in popularity of social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace and Facebook serves to highlight the value of rich social context in mediated environments (Kirman, 2010). SNGs represent a new media channel that amplifies social interaction between online users (Wohn, Lee, Sung, & Bjornrud, 2010). SNGs combine the entertainment function of existing mobile games and SNSs by connecting and stimulating interaction among users. This new media platform has opened the door to an era of SNG use that encompasses all socioeconomic classes (Yook & Ko, 2012). Marketers interested in leveraging these rapidly growing industries to attract customers seek to understand what motivates users in order to craft effective messages.

Although there is a rich and rapidly growing body of literature on game players’ characteristics and motivations (Caplan et al., 2009, Dunne et al., 2010, Huffaker et al., 2009, Wohn et al., 2010, Zhong, 2011), there has been very little research that focuses on the role of social capital as a moderating variable for subjective well-being in this environment. Building on a wide range of studies in the literature, this study builds a theoretical model to explain how factors that motivate individual SNG players reinforce their subjective well-being and also how social capital moderates the effects of these motivation factors on subjective well-being.

Section snippets

The social network games environment

SNGs operate on a small scale and allow players to enjoy gaming with close friends (Casual Games Association, 2012). Wohn, Lampe, Wash, Ellison, and Vitak (2011) defined SNGs as game applications made available through SNSs, where users play games with members of their social networks, as articulated on the sites (p.3). They pointed out that SNGs often take advantage of the social features of SNSs, including access to a list of Facebook Friends. Players using SNGs can create contact lists for

SNG motivations, social capital as a moderating variable and subjective well-being

Social capital theory purports to explain the formation and effects of social networks on human activity at both the individual and social levels (Putnam, 1993, Putnam, 2000; Helliwell & Putnam, 2005). Many researchers use the concept of social capital to explain how socially mediated resources are generated and distributed as well as how people obtain benefits from social networks, focusing on the role of social capital as an influence not only on the development of human capital but also on

SNG selection

This study’s sample was drawn from people who play the SNG Anipang in Korea. The number of Anipang users in Korea exceeds 20 million. The number of users who play Anipang at least once a day is 10 million (Anipang’s developer Sundaytoz, 2012). Anipang, is a simple but fast-paced puzzle game in which users, by swiping the screen, attempt to line up three or more identical animals as quickly as possible. When identical animals are aligned in a row, they are wiped off the screen, and the players

Measurement assessment and validation

Although the measurement tools used in the study and based on the literature review are related to SNGs, it is important to test them for reliability and validity. For this purpose a multi-method approach to confirming the reliability and validity of the constructs was applied (McMillan and Hwang, 2002, Sohn and Choi, 2013).

The study first performed principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation on the initial items, employing a factor weight of 0.50 as the minimum cutoff value. It

Discussion

This study investigated relationships between several factors associated with SNG playing, in particular between motivations to play SNGs and subjective well-being, as well as the moderating effects of social capital on those relationships. The study found that SNG playing is positively related to subjective well-being, with escapism serving as a motivating factor with a stronger effect on subjective well-being than other factors. SNG players are more likely to seek an escape from reality, fun,

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by Kyonggi University Research Grant 2012.

References (82)

  • D.M. boyd et al.

    Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship

    Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

    (2007)
  • M.A. Busseri et al.

    A review of the tripartite structure of subjective well-being: Implications for conceptualization, operationalization, analysis, and synthesis

    Personality and Social Psychology Review

    (2011)
  • E.G. Carmines et al.
    (1979)
  • Casual Games Association (2012). Social Network Games 2012, Casual Games Sector Report, Retrieved from...
  • Chang, C.C., & Chin, Y.C. (2011). Predicting the usage intention of social network games: An intrinsic–extrinsic...
  • J.S. Coleman

    Social capital in the creation of human capital

    American Journal of Sociology

    (1988)
  • P.J. Curran et al.

    The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and specification error in confirmatory factor analysis

    Psychological Methods

    (1996)
  • E. Diener

    Subjective well-being

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1984)
  • E. Diener et al.

    The satisfaction with life scale

    Journal of Personality Assessment

    (1985)
  • E. Diener et al.

    Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1999)
  • A. Dunne et al.

    Young people’s use of online social networking sites – A uses and gratifications perspective

    Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing

    (2010)
  • E.D. Durden et al.

    Social demands, social supports and psychological distress among low-income women

    Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

    (2007)
  • Ebersole, S. (2000). Uses and gratifications of the web among students. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication...
  • M. Eid et al.

    The Science of Subjective Wellbeing

    (2008)
  • N. Ellison et al.

    Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment

    Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

    (2006)
  • C. Fornell et al.

    Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement errors

    Journal of Marketing Research

    (1981)
  • GamblingData (2012). GamblingData Social Gaming White Paper 2012,...
  • L.A. Goodman

    Snowball sampling

    Annals of Mathematical Statistics

    (1961)
  • J.F. Hair et al.

    Multivariate Data Analysis

    (1998)
  • J.F. Helliwell

    Well-being, social capital and public policy: What’s new?

    Economic Journal

    (2006)
  • J.F. Helliwell et al.

    The social context of well-being

  • Hou, J.H. (2011). Uses and gratifications of social games: Blending social networking and game play. First Monday,...
  • Huffaker, D., Wang, J., Treem, J., Ahmad, M.A., Fullerton, L., Williams, D., Poole, M.S., & Contractor, N. (2009). The...
  • J. Jacobs

    The Death and Life of great American Cities

    (1965)
  • Jennifer, R.M. (2013). KakaoTalk, The Korean Messaging App Turned Social Phenomenon, Retrieved from...
  • C.H. Jin et al.

    Mobile phone users’ behaviors: The motivation factors of the mobile phone users

    International Journal of Mobile Marketing

    (2008)
  • A.N. Joinson

    Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people? Motives and use of facebook

  • K.G. Joreskog

    A general method for estimating a linear structural equation system

  • Kapp, K.M. (2012). Games, Gamification, and the Question for Learner Engagement, T+D, (June), pp....
  • M.J. Kim

    Motivation-behavior relations: An empirical analysis for playing experience on social network games

    IEEE International Games Innovation Conference (IGIC)

    (2011)
  • T. Kim et al.

    Study on social function factor in SNG reward of run away

    Journal of Korean Society for Computer Games

    (2010)
  • Cited by (39)

    • The impact of innovation and gratification on authentic experience, subjective well-being, and behavioral intention in tourism virtual reality: The moderating role of technology readiness

      2020, Telematics and Informatics
      Citation Excerpt :

      H5: Authentic experience has a positive effect on VR tourists’ behavioral intention to travel. Subjective well-being while using technologies is closely associated with users’ behavioral intention toward those technologies (Chiu et al., 2013; Jin, 2014; Li et al., 2011; Li et al., 2014). For example, subjective well-being while using information and communication technology (e.g., social network sites) is positively correlated with happiness and satisfaction with the users’ lives (Kim et al., 2014a), and presumably, subjective well-being is associated with behavioral intention.

    • A hedonic motivation model in virtual reality tourism: Comparing visitors and non-visitors

      2019, International Journal of Information Management
      Citation Excerpt :

      Consumers’ subjective well-being from using the tourism social media sites influences their continued purchase from the sites (Kim et al., 2017). Importantly, subjective well-being associated with using technologies leads to users’ behavioral intention to continuously use those technologies (Chiu, Cheng, Huang, & Chen, 2013; Jin, 2014; Kim, Chung et al. (2014); Li et al., 2011; Li, Shi, & Dang, 2014; Singh et al., 2017). In addition, the loyalty of users of social media (i.e., intention to continue using and positive word of mouth) is affected by their psychological well-being (Chiu et al., 2013).

    • The influence of intrinsic and extrinsic gratifications on continuance motivation of mobile instant messaging: The United Arab Emirates context

      2019, Journal of High Technology Management Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      Lee et al. (2012) have found that escaping from real-life problems is one of the motivational factors influencing users' attitudes towards playing social network games. Similarly, Jin (2014) has found the anticipated gratifications obtained from escapism positively influences social network games players' subjective well-being. Li et al. (2015) have utilized the U&G approach and find that escapism is one of the hedonic gratifications which has significant influence on users' continuance intention to use social network games.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text