Abstract
Modern information systems afford users to engage in social activities and make friends in mediated environments. However, we know little about what and how social features formulate friendship affordances. Research providing such knowledge is vital for effectively making design decisions. Needs-affordances-features (NAF) perspective was used to identify the four social features and four friendship affordances and further theorizes their relationships. We use two studies to test the theorized model: the first includes 642 online game players in Taiwan responding to three-wave follow-up surveys, while the second includes 615 social media users in the United States responding to two-wave follow-up surveys. Overall, the results indicate that text communication function and friend list management features are important for formulating friendship affordances in both contexts. However, user disclosure function works well in online games, while group building function woks well in social media. Such findings show the general guidance for information systems in common, while also specific insights for systems owning different features (e.g., avatars in online games versus groups in social media). Interestingly, system use in both contexts were fueled by different friendship affordances, Theoretically, the findings in this context inform the NAF perspective that affordances may demotivate as well as motivate use.
Recommended Citation
Huang, Guan-Ling; Huang, Tzu-Ling; Lin, Yi-An; Liao, Gen-Yih; Dennis, Alan; and Teng, Ching-I, "Establishing Friendship Affordances in Information Systems" (2025). Digit 2025 Proceedings. 15.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/digit2025/15
Abstract Only