Continued Social Virtual World Use among Teens: Examining the Moderating Role of Perceived Network Exposure

Millions of young people engage themselves in virtual worlds. Due to intensifying competition, retaining the existing users is a key business challenge. Prior research has shown that network externalities play a focal role in the adoption of communication technologies. However, very limited research has examined the role of network externalities in continued IT usage in general or with respect to virtual world participation in particular. To fill in this gap in the literature, we introduce the concept of perceived aggregate network exposure (PANE). We position PANE as a moderator in the IS continuance model. We test the model with a data collected from 2,134 Finnish Habbo Hotel users and employ structural equation modeling in the analysis. The results indicate that perceived network externalities moderate the influence of motivational factors on continued use intention.