Why do users keep coming back to TikTok? Understanding users’ motivation toward the continuous use intention of Chinese adolescent social media users

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In recent years, the TikTok platform has made a significant impact in the social media market worldwide, now holding a large market share in the short video service market popular with young people. Despite all this success, there is little research on how Internet users become loyal to TikTok. Hence, this study proposes a framework based on the use and gratification theory to evaluate the antecedents of adolescents’ continuous use motivations and behavior, and how they influence teenagers’ continuous use of TikTok. The survey population for this study was reached both online and offline. A total of 362 adolescent Chinese users of the TikTok platform were surveyed. The results show that self-expression, entertainment, information seeking, communication, and passing time were derived as adolescents’ motivations to use TikTok. Among these motivations, entertainment, communication, and passing time positively affect user satisfaction with TikTok. Furthermore, user satisfaction and loyalty positively affect the intention to continue using TikTok. Finally, this study advances understanding of adolescents’ use motivation of TikTok and provides new reference material for the continuous innovation of the short video format.

Acknowledgment
This study appreciated the partial financial support from Research Project of Anhui University of Science and Technology in 2023 (Project topic: Research on the construction and improvement strategy of mobile shopping experience evaluation system from the perspective of experience economy; Grant number: 2023yjrc30) and Key Research Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences in Colleges and Universities in Anhui Province (Project topic: Research on the Management Mechanism and Practical Path of Anhui Free Trade Zone; Grant number: SK2020A0199).

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    • Figure 1. Research model
    • Figure 2. Structural model with path weight and significance level
    • Table 1. Demographic characteristics of respondents
    • Table 2. Results of the measurement model
    • Table 3. Discriminant validity
    • Table 4. Structural model with path coefficient and significance level
    • Conceptualization
      Jinhua Shao, Meiling Zhao, Yan Lyu, Yugang Chen
    • Formal Analysis
      Jinhua Shao
    • Investigation
      Jinhua Shao
    • Methodology
      Jinhua Shao, Meiling Zhao, Yan Lyu, Yugang Chen
    • Writing – original draft
      Jinhua Shao, Meiling Zhao, Yan Lyu, Yugang Chen
    • Writing – review & editing
      Jinhua Shao, Meiling Zhao, Yan Lyu, Yugang Chen
    • Validation
      Meiling Zhao, Yan Lyu