Mechanisms of Engagement With, and Disengagement From, Internet Applications: A Qualitative Study of Online Job Search

In the context of increasing digitization and persistent digital inequality, scholars have sought to uncover the mechanisms that explain why people engage with, or disengage from, internet applications. We provide a new vantage to this conversation by conducting a qualitative study among 16 job-seekers in Germany who differ in how they use online job search applications. Enfolding coping and capital theory in our emerging understanding, we develop a dynamic perspective of how an individual’s resources — social capital, cultural capital, and habitus — as well as further contextual factors — perceived risk and trust in social capital — determine the appraisal and the decision to use internet applications or to abandon them. Our model suggests social capital plays a more important role in engaging people with internet applications than portrayed in previous studies. Our research carries important implications for information systems scholars and for policy makers seeking to bridge digital divides.