User Intention of Anonymous Social Application “Soul” in China: Analysis based on an Extended Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

Anonymity is an inherent attribute of the Internet. Depending on pseudonyms, cyber citizens can role play and present themselves by reconstructing a different identity. In order to satisfy the needs of anonymous self-expression, anonymous social applications have become popular worldwide. In this paper, we conduct a survey regarding user intention (UI) of “Soul”, which is a popular anonymous social media application in China, especially for the youth. For this purpose, we design an adapted technology acceptance model (TAM) consisting of seven influencing factors, i.e., perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived anonymity (PA), perceived privacy riskiness (PPR), subjective norms (SN), emotional attachments (EA) and perceived interactivity (PI). Both the measurement and structural models are tested via partial least squares structural equation model. The results show that PU, PEOU, PPR and PI have a significant relationship with UI. Therein, both SN and EA can impact PU, and meanwhile, the direct paths between PI → PEOU, PA → PPR also exist. Contrary to expectation, the effect of SN on UI is not directly significant. The proposed model is able to explain 64.1% of variance for UI among Soul users. The results suggest that the proposed constructs provide relatively good explanations for the continuous intention to use the Soul app.