Understanding Social Capital Sensitivity and Social Media Attitudes: Posting versus Replying Actions as Moderators

This study proposes the concept of social capital sensitivity as a predictor of social media satisfaction and continued use intention. Acknowledging that social media is a platform that cultivates social capital, we propose that individuals have different levels of sensitivity to social capital. Thus, this sensitivity determines the attitudes of individuals toward social media. We use a three-dimensional view of social capital - structural, relational, and cognitive - as a base framework and apply the sensitivity concept to each dimension. Tie-breadth, reciprocity, and content sensitivities are identified as a result. Posting and replying frequencies of users are also noted as moderators that differentiate the impacts of the sensitivities. To validate, a survey on 540 social media users was conducted and the majority of the hypotheses were supported. Specifically, the impact of tie-breadth sensitivity shows the most apparent difference across groups, whereas reciprocity sensitivity shows the least. In addition, posting behavior is found to be a parameter that more apparently differentiates attitudes than replying behavior. This study presents an academic contribution that explains why individuals behave and respond differently to social media contents by proposing the concept of social capital sensitivity.