Persuasive Subtleties of Social Networking Sites: Design Implications for Behavior Change Interventions

The key objective of this chapter is to improve deeper understanding of SNSs’ usage, acceptance, and users’ actual behaviors. The authors propose that understanding the phenomenal success of Facebook could provide valuable information for developing health behavior change interventions. Using structured questionnaires, the authors collect qualitative data to understand SNSs users’ online behaviors with an explicit focus on enjoyment and entertainment, desire to be connected, reciprocation, information quality, need for admiration, and influence of task obtrusiveness. The authors perform quantitative analyses with a special focus on value-based constructs because values are motivational constructs and could help predict users’ behaviors. Results indicate that enjoyment and entertainment, reciprocation, and admiration have the strongest influence on individuals’ behaviors. Although it is still early for people to use SNSs for health purposes, the results could pave the way for future research into this interesting area.