How Does the Use of Mobile Social Platforms Impact Impulsive Buying? A Case of Wechat

Based on affective event theory (AET), the present study examines how information source credibility and platform media richness are impacting consumers' impulsive buying during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The experience sampling method was adopted, and 550 matched cases nested in 110 Chinese samples were collected over five consecutive days. A multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) was employed to analyze the research model. Our main findings indicate that (1) daily information source credibility related to COVID-19 pandemic decreases information anxiety, whereas platform media richness increases information anxiety;(2) information anxiety mediates the impacts of information source credibility and media richness on impulsive buying;(3) chronic COVID-19 induced strain moderates the indirect relationship between daily platform media richness and impulsive buying through information anxiety. This study enriches the impulsive buying literature by incorporating informational and technical characteristics of mobile social platforms in the COVID-19 period. This study provides us with practical implications about how to manage impulsive buying. © 2021 ACM. Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.

Information quality, media richness, and negative coping: A daily research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For most mobile technology users, social media platforms are their main source of information about the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the stimulus-organism-response model, this study proposes that information quality and media richness are related to social media fatigue, which induces negative coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. The moderating roles of health consciousness and COVID-19-induced strain are also examined. The data were collected from 108 users of WeChat using a daily experience sampling method and analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling with Mplus. The results show that information quality significantly decreases social media fatigue, whereas media richness significantly increases social media fatigue, which is an outcome of negative coping. Health consciousness buffers the indirect effect of information quality on negative coping through social media fatigue, whereas COVID-19-induced strain strengthens the indirect effect of media richness on negative coping through social media fatigue. These findings enrich the literature on social media fatigue and negative coping by revealing the informational and technical causes of these issues at the episode level in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19-Related Disruptions and Increased mHealth Emergency Use Intention: Experience Sampling Method Study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global public health event, which has raised concerns regarding individuals' health. Individuals need to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic with guidelines on symptom recognition, home isolation, and maintain mental health. Besides routine use of mobile health (mHealth) such as accessing information to keep healthy, individuals can use mHealth services in situations requiring urgent medical care, which is defined as mHealth emergency use. It is not known whether individuals have increased their daily mHealth services emergency use as a result of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this diary analysis study is to assess the influences of daily disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals' mHealth emergency use. The secondary purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of COVID-19-induced strain and the moderating role of promotion regulatory focus in the relationship between daily disruptions of COVID-19 and mHealth emergency use. Drawing from the cognitive activation theory of stress, we investigated the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the influence of COVID-19-related disruptions on daily mHealth emergency use. METHODS: To test the proposed model, this study adopts the experience sampling method to collect daily data. The experience sampling method helps researchers to capture participants' fluctuations in emotions, mental engagement in an activity, and experienced stress. This study collected 550 cases nested in 110 samples in mainland China to test the conceptual model. In addition, we employed hierarchical linear modeling analysis to test the effect of COVID-19-related disruptions on mHealth emergency use. RESULTS: We found that COVID-19-related disruptions increased COVID-19-induced strain (γ=0.24, P<.001) and mHealth emergency use on a daily basis (γ=0.28, P<.001). COVID-19-induced daily strain mediated this relationship (effect=0.09, 95% CI 0.05-0.14). Promotion regulatory focus moderated the relationship between COVID-19-induced strain and mHealth emergency use (γ=0.35, P=.02). In addition, the indirect relationship between disruptions and mHealth emergency use intentions through COVID-19-induced strain is contingent upon promotion regulatory focus: this relationship was stronger in those with high promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.12, 95% CI 0.06-0.19) than in those with low promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.06, 95% CI 0.02-0.11). CONCLUSIONS: Event disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic induced mHealth emergency use intention through increased psychological strain. Furthermore, individuals' promotion regulatory focus amplified this indirect relationship. Our findings extend our understanding of the factors underlying mHealth emergency use intention and illustrate the potential contingent role of promotion regulatory focus in the cognitive activation theory of stress. This study also opens avenues for future research on mHealth emergency use intention in other countries and cultural settings.