THE BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT REVIEW - The Academy of ...

Research of Influencing Factors for Usage of
Facebook Willingness -A Case Study on College
Students in the Tamsui Area
Cho-Pu Vincent Lin
St. John’s University, Taiwan
Yen-Ting Tim Lin & Wen-Hui Mico Yang
Hsiuping University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Keywords
Facebook; entertainment; technologies; fans page; Tamsui area; usage willingness
Abstract
The rise of social networking websites in recent rise has aroused the discussion among the society. Social
networking websites not only enable people to connect with friends, but also can conduct various studies. For
example, people can create events, conduct a “Human Flesh Search”, and so on. Furthermore, people are able to open
up new relationships on the internet. This study discusses the influencing factors to the usage of Facebook
willingness among college students in the Tamsui area. By statistical results, the six variables in this study
(relationships, privacy, entertainment, technologies, fans page and community loyalty) were verified as the most
important factors affecting the influencing for the usage of Facebook willingness among college students in the
Tamsui area. It was shown that three variables (relationships, privacy and community loyalty) had a positive
influence to the usage of Facebook to college students in the Tamsui area, which completely matched with the
discovery discussed in literature. However, the remaining three variables (entertainment, technologies and fans
page) showed to greatly differ with literature, which conversely had a negative influence to the usage of Facebook
among the subjects in this study; these three variables were therefore studied with in-depth analysis in this research.
Purpose of Research and Motives
Background of research and motive
With the advance of technology, we are currently in a new era where computers and mobile
phones are readily accessed to the internet. Social networking websites are shown to further stand out on
the internet, which as Facebook ranked second in the number of registered users among the world,
reaching more than 600 million. One of the reasons for the incredible and rapid growth is because it is
simple to register and easy to use. The huge influence is as described in the media, where “it’s
population size would make it the third largest country, after China and India”. The founder, Mark
Zuckerberg, has even been named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2010; the film The Social
Network was also made which portrays the phenomenon, making Facebook sweeping the whole globe.
Facebook’s capability to bring up major topics enhanced its commercial value, making itself unaffected by
the times of economic downturns.
The internet has shortened the distances among people. Social networking websites increase the
interactions of people and maintains the relationships in society. New friends are also made via social
networking websites. Facebook is based on interpersonal interactions, which the games, fan groups, blogs
and sharing of photos enable users to know others even better. Users use this function to connect social
development and maintain the relationship with others (Ellison et al, 2007). Facebook has successfully
captured the hearts of users and is currently the most popular social networking website.
Purpose of Research
This study uses the influencing factors to the usage of Facebook willingness to analyze the factors of
The Business & Management Review, Vol.2 Number 2, July 2012
296