Computer playfulness and anxiety: positive and negative mediators of the system experience effect on perceived ease of use

Perceived ease of use plays a critical role in predicting and determining a user’s decision to use an information system. Users perceive a system easier to use as they gain more knowledge and confidence through direct experience in using the system. Our research traced the link between system experience and ease of use via both positive (computer playfulness) and negative (computer anxiety) responses using a sample of 116 users of electronic spreadsheets. As expected, system experience was significantly related to perceived ease of use. Both computer playfulness and computer anxiety were found to be significant mediators of the effect that system experience has on ease of use. However, the effect was fully mediated only by computer anxiety, revealing that the negative side of user reaction is a more potent mechanism than the positive side. Moreover, the findings indicate that those interventions found to influence the mediating variable of computer anxiety should be used to effectively enhance ease of use perceptions.