Demystifying Continuous Participation in Game Applications at Social Networking Sites: A Social Playfulness Design Perspective

Purpose: Drawn from the social playfulness literature and the elaboration likelihood model, the purpose of this paper is to propose and test a research model to examine users\u27 continuous participation in SNS game applications. Design/methodology/approach: A field survey with 133 subjects was conducted to test the research model. Findings: Two identified design features, symbolic physicality and inherent sociability, are found to influence users\u27 perceived curiosity and perceived enjoyment toward playing SNS game applications. Perceived enjoyment is significantly associated with perceived curiosity and predicts users\u27 continuous participation of SNS game applications. The authors also observed a gender difference of social playfulness design on perceived curiosity. Research limitations/implications: Use intention was used as a proxy for actual use behavior, since objective data on continuance behavior was not available. Additionally, the contributions of this study may be constrained by one single sample. Practical implications: The findings of the study suggest practical guidelines for designing game applications in SNS through socialization design and symbolic physicality. Further, based on the findings of gender differences, a personalization game design strategy is provided. Originality/value: The study contributes to the post-adoption IS literature and sheds light on the interesting area of social media participation. Additionally, this study enriches the online gaming research by demonstrating gender differences