The role of utilitarian and hedonic aspects in the continuance intention to use social mobile apps

The purpose of this research is to understand the main factors that determine users’ continuance intention to use social mobile Apps, considering two utilitarian (i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use) variables and a hedonic (i.e., perceived enjoyment) variable. As social mobile Apps may be utilitarian or hedonic, we aim to evaluate possible differences in the significance of the aforementioned antecedent factors in utilitarian Apps (i.e., TripAdvisor) and hedonic Apps (i.e., Instagram). The data were collected from an international sample of users; the Partial Least Squares method was applied to analyze the research model, using SMARTPLS 3.0. To analyze the moderating effects, a multi-group PLS analysis was carried out to compare the differences between the path relationships in the two Apps. The results show that continuance intention to use is explained by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, satisfaction and user experience (control variable), and the impact of utilitarian variables is generally greater for utilitarian Apps, whereas the impact of perceived enjoyment is higher for hedonic Apps. This study contributes to the general body of knowledge about mobile Apps by providing a comprehensive theoretical foundation and practical implications that illuminate the continuance use of social mobile Apps.