ARE CYNICS MORE SOCIAL NETWORK DEPENDENT? EXPLORING YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK USAGE

Social media landscape is characterized by rapid changes: existing platforms evolve integrating new features and new ones arise in the market. In this scenario, the IT dependency phenomenon appears to be particularly salient in the social media context. This study aims to explore the antecedents of individual IS usage behaviour in terms of Social Media Dependencies (SMD) focusing on the utilitarian, rational, and goal-oriented usage, investigating the social network dependency. Differently from previous work, we analyse the effects of individual attitude on SMD, combining the expectancy value theory with media system dependence theory. This paper investigates the effect of one specific social axiom construct – Social Cynicism – on SMD, considering the differences between the usage of two of the most diffused Social Networks: Facebook and YouTube. This research develops and validates a research model, shedding some new light on the investigation of the dependence phenomena in the context of Social Networks.