Purpose: Although leveraging social media to access healthcare information is nothing new, a boom in short video apps offers new potential for disseminating health-related information. However, it is still unclear how short video apps might facilitate and benefit users’ consumption of health information. Furthermore, the technology features of short video apps complicate attempts to conduct research about them; as a consequence, they have been understudied. For addressing these concerns, this study adopts an affordance perspective to investigate the relationship between affordances and user experience and to examine factors that contribute to users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing upon affordance theory, we constructed a research model that integrates four types of affordances (livestreaming, searching, meta-voicing and recommending), three types of user experience (immersion, social presence and credibility perception), and user’s intention to continue use. We employed an online survey and obtained a sample of 372 valid responses from TikTok (DouYin) users in China. The partial least squares (PLS) method was used to analyze the data.Findings: The study found that the user experience, in terms of social presence, immersion and credibility perception, can significantly predict users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information. Furthermore, the user experience was positively associated with the different affordances provided by the short video apps.Originality/value: The findings of this study have several implications. First, the study contributes to the health information behavior literature by incorporating the aspect of user experience. Moreover, the study extends the application of affordance theory to users’ health information acquisition, and it carries some practical implications on how to leverage the great potential of short video apps to serve public health communication better.

Purpose: Hedonic social applications have been increasingly popular among health information consumers. However, it remains unclear what motivates consumers to adopt health information in hedonic applications when they have alternative choices of more formal health information sources. Building on the self-determination theory and the affordances lens, this study aims to investigate how different affordances on hedonic social applications affect consumers' basic psychological needs and further influence their intention to adopt health information on such applications.Design/methodology/approach: As TikTok demonstrated great potential in disseminating health information, we developed a model that we analyze using the PLS-SEM technique with data collected from a valid research sample of 384 respondents with health information seeking or encountering experience in TikTok.Findings: The results suggested that health information adoption in hedonic social applications is significantly predicted by the satisfaction of consumers' basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, relatedness and competence. Moreover, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is positively affected by affordances provided by the hedonic social applications. The hedonic affordances positively influence autonomy satisfaction, while the connective affordances positively affect relatedness satisfaction, and the utilitarian affordances positively support competence satisfaction.Originality/value: The study indicates that hedonic social applications such as TikTok could be an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical model that explains consumers' health information adoption and yields practical implications for designers and service providers of hedonic social applications.

As emerging approaches, IT-based applications designed for encouraging pro-environmental behaviors have shown great potential. By focusing on Ant Forest, this study attempts to explore the embedded gamification design to identify key elements that lead to users’ long-term game participation which eventually fosters pro-environmental behaviors. First, a focus group interview was conducted to identify twenty-one gamification design elements in four modules: task design, social interaction, feedback, and reward. Furthermore, this study employed the Two-Dimensional Kano Model and better–worse analysis to classify and prioritize the gamification design elements that impact users’ attitudes toward Ant Forest. Five Attractive elements, five One-Dimensional elements, four Must-Be elements, and seven Indifferent elements were identified in Ant Forest from 207 questionnaires. The results emphasize the significant impact of gamification design elements that are highly correlated with environmental sustainability (i.e., green context, pro-environmental behaviors, plant a tree) in Ant Forest. In addition, users who are rewarded by both virtual medals and official certificates demonstrate higher satisfaction, whereas elements associated with social interaction and competition show trivial importance. This study has profound theoretical implications as an interdisciplinary study, and yields helpful insights for practice to improve Ant Forest design, promote Ant Forest usage and finally fuel pro-environmental behaviors.

Freemium open-world games have become one of the most profitable game genres through the sale of in-game items. However, despite the apparent commercial success of the freemium approach to open-world games, the antecedents of players’ in-game purchase intention have been understudied. In this study, we built a theoretical framework based on cognitive absorption (CA) theory to understand the mechanism underlying players’ in-game purchase intention in open-world games. Several hypotheses were proposed regarding how CA was formed and how CA’s influence on in-game purchase intention might be moderated by motivational affordances (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness). These hypotheses were tested by partial least-squares structural equation modeling, using a sample of 490 valid responses among open-world game players. The results suggest that CA significantly increased players’ in-game purchase intention, which is strengthened by two motivational affordances (i.e., autonomy and competence). In addition, personal innovativeness, playfulness, and perceived affective quality are verified as important determinants of CA in open-world games. We discuss the related theoretical and practical implications of these findings.