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Despite the significance of online communication and interactions, previous research has not systematically compared all features on a single platform from the users' perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by extensively reviewing the current literature on social media affordances and proposes and tests a feature-centric and affordance-based conceptualization of social media platforms (SMPs) between users, features, the audience and content.

This research surveys users on Facebook, one of the largest SMPs, and asks them to assess 20 features of Facebook on six relational affordances between users, features, audience and content. The data in this study were collected on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) with participants from the US Correspondence analysis was employed to examine the relationship between affordances and the ties among affordances, features and outcomes.

Results of the study indicate that users perceive features differently, and employing features as the unit of analysis captures users' interactions effectively. The findings support the presence of user-oriented affordances, such as presentation flexibility, association and content association. These three affordances can be summarized in two higher-level ones: self-expression and connection (SEC) and persona-linked content (PLC). Our findings of the two dimensions, SEC and PLC, highlight the importance of targets and their connections in understanding social media interactions' dynamic nature.

By proposing to shift the focus from platforms to features, this study suggests that companies should focus on understanding the features they use for their users to interact with their brand, rather than merely ensuring that their company is omnipresent on all platforms. This study underlines the need to focus on features that will help managers influence interpersonal and user-brand communications and interactions on social media.

This research is the first to put features at the center of its investigation and quantitatively examine the relationship between social media features and affordances in a social media context. In all, this research provides a new unit of analysis that is more suitable for researchers to build a robust conceptual foundation for affordances. We believe that conceptualizing audience and content as outcomes, distinguishing it from features and creating connections between them as affordances is the unique aspect of our conceptualization.

Building on the “needs–affordances–features” framework, the authors explored how users are motivated by their needs to actualize the feature-enabled affordances and engage in the metaverse.

The data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 35 participants. The authors applied thematic analysis to summarize the key features and affordances, supplemented by frequency analysis to explore the significance of the features. Sentiment analysis was employed to explicate the relationship between user affordance sentiments and engagement.

The key features of the metaverse portal components—hardware, software and content—afford user behaviors. The features of mechanics and physics engines are important for user engagement in the metaverse. The affordances are related to needs satisfaction and user engagement. Mental immersion was frequently mentioned by the participants, implying that it is significant to afford mental immersion in the metaverse.

The findings of the study provide a rich understanding for practitioners in the metaverse on how to use the features to afford user behaviors and engage them. The authors identified the key elements of user engagement that can be used to guide metaverse game designers.

This study provides a rich and systematic understanding of features, affordances, needs satisfaction and engagement in the metaverse. Going beyond a fragmented view, the findings conclude a research framework that weaves features, affordances, needs and engagement together.

The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative and exploratory strategies. By combining the typical user experience with psychological mechanisms in MMOGs, this study is devoted to clarifying how technology affordance and digital perfectionistic intention influence reinforcement and variety-seeking orientations of MMOGs use.

This study adopted a sequential triangulation mixed-methods design to explore how diverse usage behaviors of reinforced and varied use in MMOGs are formed. After proposing the theoretical framework from MMOGs affordance, perfectionistic intentions, and diverse use, empirical evidence was initially collected from representative samples through a survey. Qualitative interviews from players in MMOGs and game industry practitioners are conducted to confirm the results, supplement understanding, and gather insights from diverse backgrounds. The quantitative and qualitative inferences are discussed to validate the research focus.

Findings from various perspectives suggest that perfectionistic intentions are critical antecedents of different usage behaviors influenced by affordances provided in MMOGs. Goal-driven affordance with reward and competition, interaction affordance, and identity affordance are key MMOGs affordances and could affect perfectionistic intentions differently. People with different perfectionistic intentions, which are the psychological outcome of MMOGs affordances, possess diverse usage behaviors.

This study is the first to consider diverse usage behaviors in virtual worlds such as MMOGs by combining lenses of perfectionistic intentions and technology affordance. Findings from mixed-methods analysis significantly enrich the research on online game usage behavior, offering valuable theoretical and practical implications for studying usage behaviors within the virtual world.

The aim of this research is to propose a new prospective and methodology to explore how design affordance affects smartphone usage with a contextual approach to investigating the relationship among design features, functional affordance, descriptive beliefs, and inferential beliefs.

This research was conducted in two phases to explore the effect of design affordance on adoption of smartphone. In the first phase, the paper investigated how smartphone's innovative design features afford user's functional perception. Subsequently, two affordance-based beliefs – intuition and diversity – were elicited from the design features of smartphone's user interface. In the second phase, a theoretical model was developed and empirically assessed for exploring the effects of the elicited affordance-based variables along with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) variables on smartphone adoption.

Results show that the diversity has significant positive effect on both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of smartphone usage. However, the effect of intuition is significant on perceived ease of use but not on perceived usefulness. Of the IDT variables, only relative advantage is statistically significant for attitudes.

The paper only focused on exploring some innovative design features and associated affordances for smartphone adoption. Other design features should be taken into consideration in future research.

The result of this research implies that managers or designers should take advantage of the current advanced technology to develop diverse and intuitive design features on smartphone for attracting user's attention and affection.

There is a contradiction in prior studies concerning the explanations for the causes of ICT artifact adoption while preserving both the generalizability of TAM model and the accuracy and salience to practice. This research contributes a new vision and methodology to explain what and how innovative design features influence user's attitudes towards smartphone usage from the affordance perspective.

The rise and popularity of digitalization have made the addictive use in the virtual world more common, which has aroused wide attention from academia and public. Uncovering the underlying mechanism of addictive use is essential to address this serious issue.

By utilizing the context of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), this study developed virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and avoiding failure from the dual process model of perfectionism and identified four affordances in MMOGs from the perspective of technology affordance. The authors surveyed 302 valid samples in MMOGs to empirically test the research model.

The results demonstrate that two processes of virtual-domain perfectionism influence addictive use positively in MMOGs. Technology affordances perform as the antecedents of virtual-domain perfectionism and conduct distinct impacts in MMOGs. Specifically, affordances of interaction and identity are positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism, while achievement affordance is unrelated to virtual-domain perfectionism. Immersion affordance is positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and negatively associated with virtual-domain perfectionism of avoiding failure.

This study identified virtual-domain perfectionism and specific MMOGs affordances. The research model provides insights into addictive use in MMOGs by leveraging context and combining lenses. Research findings help elucidate the role of virtual-domain perfectionism on the addictive use from MMOGs affordances with the corresponding technical features.

Recently, short-form video apps, as a new form of social media, have attracted users and rapidly emerged by virtue of their personalized recommendation algorithms, interesting forms of live interaction, and diverse interactive functions, which may lead to excessive use. From the perspective of IT affordances, this study combines the cognitive-affective-behavioral model and perceived values theory to examine the formation mechanism of the excessive use of short-form video apps.

We surveyed a total of 351 users who have used Tiktok, a typical short-form video app, and used their questionnaires to test the research model.

Searching affordance has a positive impact on perceived information value and perceived entertainment value. Furthermore, meta-voicing, recommending, and livestreaming affordance have a positive impact on perceived information value, perceived entertainment value, and perceived social networking value, which also have a positive impact on negative affect anticipation. In addition, negative affect anticipation is significantly positively correlated with excessive use.

In terms of theory, this study introduces the theory of IT affordances and perceived values into the cognitive-affective-behavioral model, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time. Furthermore, it conducts situational research on the formation mechanism of excessive use of short-form video apps and makes up for the lack of studying of excessive use behavior from the perspective of technical factors.

Using perspectives from the technology affordance and social capital theories, this study aims to unpack the process through which platform-enabled co-development unfolds in supply chain contexts. Specifically, it explores how innovation outcomes can be fostered through platform affordances and supply chain relationship (SCR) capital.

The paper integrates literature on digital platforms, SCRs and co-development to produce an integrative framework, developing propositions on the relationships among digital platforms, SCR capital and innovation outcomes.

The authors identify affordances for distinctive strategic use of platforms: value co-creation, relationship building and strategic learning. The authors discuss ways in which each affordance contributes to the advances in SCR capital, thus altogether enabling focal firms to orchestrate and integrate internal and external resources to attain incremental and radical innovation.

Based on the proposed research framework, further empirical studies can use quantitative data to measure the relationship between affordances and SCR capital and use longitudinal case studies to explore how affordances and SCR capital evolve to provide more fine-grained and contextualised information in different research settings.

This paper sheds light on how the relation between the adoption of digital platforms and SCR capital shapes digitally enabled service co-development. The authors provide an alternative explanation of resource integration in platform-mediated supply chain contexts and enrich the related literature on how digital platforms can maximise value from introducing ambidextrous innovation by leveraging internal and external resources.

Social networking sites (SNS) have become popular mediums for individuals to interact with others. However, despite the positive impact of SNS on people’s lives, cyberbullying has become prevalent. Due to this prevalence, substantial research has examined cyberbullying from the perspectives of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims, but little is known about SNS users’ confrontations with cyberbullying. The objectives of this study are to examine confrontation as a victim’s coping response, the effect of blockability affordance on victims’ protection motivation, the impact of a victim’s experiences with cyberbullying perpetration, and social desirability (SD) bias in the context of cyberbullying victimization.

This study examines the effect of blockability affordance on SNS users’ protection motivation. It also investigates the relationships among perceived threat, perceived coping efficacy, and use of confrontation. Furthermore, this investigation analyzes the effect of SNS users’ experiences as perpetrators on their decision to confront cyberbullies. Finally, this study assesses and controls SD bias in SNS users’ confrontation behavior. To test the research model, we used an online vignette study to collect 314 data points.

Blockability affordance, perceived threat, perceived coping efficacy, and cyberbullying perpetration experiences are essential factors in explaining use of confrontation. This study also finds SD bias in the context of cyberbullying victimization.

This is one of the first studies in information systems research to empirically examine the effect of blockability affordance in the context of cyberbullying.

Social networking sites (SNSs) offer people the possibility of maintaining larger networks of social ties, which also entails more complex relationship maintenance across multiple platforms. Whom to “friend” and via which platform can involve complex deliberations. This study investigates the relationships between users' perceived friending affordances of five popular SNSs (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn) and their friending behaviors concerning strong ties, weak ties (existing and latent ties) and parasocial ties.

An online survey using Qualtrics was provided to participants (N = 626) through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey asked their SNS use and their friending behaviors with different ties on each of the sites.

Users' friending decisions are dependent on an interplay of socio-technical affordances of each SNS and specific needs for the ties. The authors found that the affordances of bridging social capital and enjoyment are aligned with friending weak and parasocial ties, respectively. The affordances of bonding social capital were not valued to friend strong ties.

The study extends the affordance and social capital literature by assessing users' perceived, contextualized SNS affordances in relation to actual communication behaviors in friending different social ties. This approach provides contextualized insights to friending decisions and practices on SNSs.

This study explores the key platform affordances that online social platform providers need to offer digital creators to strengthen the creator ecosystem, one of the leading accelerators for platform growth. Specifically, it aims to investigate how these affordances make the dynamic combinations for high platform quality across diverse platform types and demographic characteristics of digital creators.

This study adopts a multi-method approach. Drawing upon the affordance theory, Study 1 aims to identify the key affordances of online social platforms based on relevant literature and the qualitative interview data collected from 22 digital creators, thereby constructing a conceptual framework of key platform affordances for digital creators. Building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 explores the dynamic combinations of these platform affordances that contribute to platform quality using a configurational approach. Data from online surveys of 185 digital creators were analyzed using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results of Study 1 identified key online social platform affordances for digital creators, including Storytelling, Socialization, Design, Development, Promotion, and Protection affordance. Study 2 showed that the combinations of these platform affordances for digital creators are diverse according to the types of platforms, creators’ gender, and their professionality.

Like many studies, this research also has several limitations. One limitation of the research is the potential constraint of the extent of how well the data samples represent the group of creators who are actively producing digital content. Despite the addition of screening questions and meticulous data filtering, it is possible that we did not secure sufficient data from creators who are actively engaged in creative activities. In future research, it is worth contemplating the acquisition of data from actual groups of creators, such as creator communities. Future researchers anticipate obtaining more in-depth and accurate data by directly involving and collaborating with creators.

This study highlights the need for online social platforms to enhance features for storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and protection, fostering a robust digital creator ecosystem. It emphasizes clear communication of these affordances, ensuring creators can effectively utilize them. Importantly, platforms should adapt these features to accommodate diverse creator profiles, considering differences in gender and expertise levels, especially in emerging spaces like the Metaverse. This approach ensures an equitable and enriching experience for all users and creators, underlining the importance of dynamic interaction and inclusivity in platform development and creator support strategies.

This study underscores the social implications of evolving digital creator ecosystems on online platforms. Identifying six key affordances essential for digital creators highlights the need for platforms to enhance storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and product protection. Crucially, it emphasizes inclusivity, urging platforms to consider diverse creator profiles, including gender and expertise differences, particularly in transitioning from traditional social media to the Metaverse. This approach nurtures a more robust creator ecosystem and fosters an equitable and enriching experience for all users. It signals a shift towards more dynamic, adaptive online environments catering to diverse creators and audiences.

For academics, this study builds the conceptual framework of online social platform affordances for digital creators. Using the configurational approach, this study identified various interdependent relationships among the affordances, which are nuanced by specific contexts, and suggested novel insights for future studies. For practices, the findings specified by creators and platform types are expected to guide platform providers in developing strategies to support digital creators and contribute to platform growth.